Star Wars: Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2008 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79588-5
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
v3.1
For
Jim Bertges
acknowledgments
Once again, thanks go first and foremost to my editors: Shelly Shapiro at Del Rey and Sue Rostoni at LucasBooks, who invited me to walk on the wild side of Coruscant again; to Leland Chee and the other galactic wonks who never got tired of continuity questions; and, as always, to George Lucas for the whole shebang.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force
Introduction to the Old Republic Era
Introduction to the Rise of the Empire Era
Introduction to the Rebellion Era
Introduction to the New Republic Era
Introduction to the New Jedi Order Era
Introduction to the Legacy Era
dramatis personae
Aurra Sing; bounty hunter (female humanoid)
Baron Vlaçan Umber; art patron (male Vindalian)
Baroness Kirma Umber; noblewoman (female Vindalian)
Darth Vader; Sith Lord (male human)
Dejah Duare; artist’s assistant (female Zeltron)
Den Dhur; Whiplash partisan, former reporter (male Sullustan)
I-Five; protocol droid
Jax Pavan; Whiplash partisan, former Jedi Knight (male human)
Laranth Tarak; Whiplash partisan, former Jedi Knight (female Twi’lek)
Pol Haus; sector police prefect (male Zabrak)
Typho; Naboo captain, security specialist (male human)
Ves Volette; light sculptor (male Caamasi)
prologue
Planet Naboo, 19 BBY
Padmé had never known how much he loved her.
She had died, as far as he knew, in a lonely, far-off place, on a planet that, if not the hell envisioned by the superstitious beliefs of sundry worlds, certainly came close. That was as far as he’d traced her final journey: to Mustafar, a globe still in the throes of creation, where rivers of fire and molten rock stitched across a landscape of basalt and obsidian, and where specially designed heat-resistant droids mined the lava flows for rare and precious minerals. A terrible place, a world of eternal darkness, of soot-filled skies and mephitic gases. No one deserved to die in such a place, especially not Padmé. If she had to die, she should have spent her last hours on a world of sunlight and song, like their mutual homeworld of Naboo, a world of green and blue, not black and red.
But she had gone to Mustafar, gone after the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, on a mission so secret, she’d said, that not even her bodyguard could accompany her. And he, believing that she would be protected under the aegis of the Jedi, had let her go.
And had never seen her again—alive.
Captain Typho, once head of security for the Consular Branch of the Naboo Senate, castigated himself for his decision as he stood with the rest of the mourners, watching the flower-covered casket moving slowly down the esplanade. It had been his job as a soldier to protect Senator Amidala, to shield her from attacks by clandestine Separatist agents. He had known there would be more attempts on her life. He had known it because there had been previous ones: the bombing of her starship on the very day of her arrival on Coruscant; the deadly kouhuns released into her sleeping chamber by a changeling assassin; her near execution in the arena at Geonosis.
Even had he not loved her, he would have sacrificed his life to protect her without a second thought. That would have been his duty. His love for her only compounded his culpability. She had gone on her mysterious mission with Skywalker, and he had not gone with her. And now he had to live with the guilt of his survival, a curse infinitely harder than the relatively easy task of dying for her.
It was true that, had she lived, there still would have been no chance of his love for her being requited. Padmé had, after all, been a Senator, and before that the planetary Queen. He was but a soldier; the difference in caste had been far too great. But it hadn’t stopped him from loving her. No power in the galaxy, not even the Force itself, could have done that.
After the funeral, Typho milled aimlessly about in the crowd, still stunned, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact of her death. Still reviewing, over and over, what he might have done differently, if he could possibly have persuaded her to reconsider that last journey …
Pointless. Fruitless. These self-flagellations served no purpose. Execrating his actions would not bring her back, nor would it honor her memory. Had she known how he had felt, had she known of his love for her, he knew Padmé would have wanted him to move on, to release her, to live instead of wallowing in despondency. And he was willing to do that.
But first, he told himself, there is one last task that must be performed …
Padmé Amidala must be avenged.
He had heard conflicting rumors, snatches of conversation during the chaos immediately after her death. Most of the government factotums and officials were caught up in dealing with larger issues; although to Typho there could be no greater concern than his personal feelings regarding Padmé’s death. He knew that the diplomatic reverberations, especially in light of Naboo’s already tenuous status of autonomy in the eyes of Palpatine’s new regime, were gigantic. For the circumstances of the Senator’s demise were, to put it bluntly, suspicious. There was evidence—compelling evidence—that she had died a violent death.
Of course, this was not meant to be known by the population at large. But rank did have certain privileges, and Captain Typho had learned some things about Padmé’s last hours. There were conflicting reports, of course, but all the autopsy reports were in agreement on two things: that she had been strangled, and that the child had died with her.
But exactly how the former had been accomplished, no one was quite sure. The evidence of strangulation had been there, and obvious: the fractured hyoid bone, damage to the larynx, and compression of the trachea were all clear indications of fatal throttling.
But …
There were no signs of bruises on her neck, no scratches or signs of congestion … no indication of exterior trauma at all. Her throat had been pristine. It was as if she had somehow been choked to death without physical contact. And there was only one power in the galaxy that Typho knew of that could accomplish such a thing.
The Force.
Padmé had gone to Mustafar to meet with the Jedi Knight Skywalker. And all evidence indicated that she had been killed through the Force.
It could not possibly be a coincidence. Even if Skywalker was not the murderer, he had to have been connected somehow. In any event, he was the best and only lead to follow.
Typho knew what he had to do.
He would go to Coruscant. He would find Anakin Skywalker. And depending on what he learned, the Jedi would live or die.
And then, perhaps, Padmé would rest easier.
PART I 
PLANET NOIR
one
“I think it’s safe to assume,” the droid said, “that we’ve been set up.”
A fusillade of laser and particle beams erupted from across the room, aimed at the five of them, as if to punctuate the statement. Den looked at Jax. “Aren’t you glad your father gave him that neural upgrade?”
Another series of beams struck the huge hypercondensor unit behind which they were hiding. They were protected for the moment, Jax knew, but eventually, if the stormtroopers’ lasers and charged-particle bursts kept hitting the unit, the duralumin housing would overheat, quite possibly upsetting the stability of the ultracold Tibanna condensate within. Should that happen, I-Five estimated the explosive factor as at least a 7.5, which would certainly vaporize the building they were in, as well as a sizable chunk of the surrounding urban landscape.
“That’s only a rough estimate,” the droid explained. “There are too many variables to factor for me to refine my—”
“Seven-point-five is more than enough for me,” Jax assured him. “Den?”
“I’m good,” Den agreed. The little Sullustan was crouched beside I-Five. “You definitely know how to motivate people,” he added to the droid.
“Less talk. More shooting,” Laranth said. The Twi’lek Paladin had a blaster in either hand and was crouched near the far end of the unit. “I say we go—now.”
Jax couldn’t argue with her logic. The longer they remained pinned down, the less chance of survival they and their client had, not to mention however many hundreds of thousands of beings would die if I-Five’s 7.5 scenario really was in the immediate future. Not that Jax had any doubt of it. The droid had an annoying habit of being right just about all the time.
“Okay,” he said. “Laranth, take the right; I-Five, the left. On my signal—”
“Hey, what about me?” Den asked.
“Stay here with the undersecretary.” Jax spared a glance at the corpulent, trembling form crouched beside Den. Before the Empire had superseded the Republic, Varesk Bura’lya had been a midlevel government official assigned to the Bothan embassy on Coruscant. Immediately after the Republic’s fall, he had become a fugitive, along with thousands of other representatives of various species on the city-planet. True, no particular effort was being made to hunt them down, and in a global metropolis that was home to literally trillions of sentient beings, one stood a very good chance of living a lifetime (thousands of lifetimes, in fact) without ever coming into contact with an enemy. But one overall characteristic of the Bothan species was paranoia, and Bura’lya had no shortage of that. So he had contacted the Coruscant resistance movement known as the Whiplash, and arranged for safe passage offworld through the Underground Mag-Lev, a dangerous and circuitous secret route that delivered enemies of the state to spaceports and sympathetic starships via safe houses, private conapts, and other clandestine means.
Jax Pavan, one of the last surviving Jedi and a partisan of the Whiplash resistance, had been assigned to help ferry the Bothan dignitary to freedom. All had gone well until they’d reached the final checkpoint, in the dimly lit interior of a carbonite-processing plant. Here they’d been greeted, not by the resistance members they’d expected, but instead by a brace of Imperial stormtroopers.
They were smart, he had to give them that. Knowing that a droid was part of the party, they’d staged the attack in the depths of the carbonite-cracking plant, taking advantage of the low-level background radiation that would confuse I-Five’s bio- and energy sensors for the moment needed. They hadn’t known that there would also be two Jedi to contend with, however. The Force had warned Jax and Laranth of the trap, which is why four troopers now lay dead on the floor. If the Bothan hadn’t, in his panic, gotten in the way, Jax was certain that the rest of the troopers would also be dead by now, and Varesk Bura’lya would be about to board the spice freighter Big Score and become a fading unpleasant memory instead of hiding behind the hypercondensor unit, caterwauling about his imminent demise.
Now he looked up at Jax, the fleshy tendrils that protruded from his upper cheeks quivering in fear. “You were hired to protect me!” he squealed, his voice scraping unpleasantly along the Jedi’s nerves. “Your job was to help me escape from this overbuilt rock! Is this what you call escape?”
“Well,” Den observed, “that depends on how metaphysical a definition of escape you want to go with …”
Another volley of beams struck their shelter, scorching the air and leaving the unpleasant tang of ozone in Jax’s nostrils. There was no more time, he knew; they had to make their move. He opened himself to the Force, letting it expand his awareness, feeling its strands groping outward, beyond the bulk of the condensor unit, giving him an accurate “picture” of the chamber they were in and highlighting the locations of the eight concealed stormtroopers who had them pinned down.
“On my mark,” he said again. “… Go!”
Laranth hurled herself from behind the right side of the condensor’s bulk, blasters in both hands firing, her eyes as cold and hard as chips of comet ice. I-Five burst from concealment on the left side, the lasers in his index fingers zapping beams of coherent light at their adversaries. Jax let the Force lift him, let it carry him up and over the huge, shielding slab, his vibrosword parrying the blasts as he landed, batting them back toward the astonished troopers. This was much harder than it looked. The durasteel blade had been woven with cortosis, a mineral strong enough to resist energy blasts, but its similarity to a lightsaber ended there. A scarlet ray struck low on the blade, more by luck than by aim, and the vibrogenerator in the hilt shorted out. Even through the insulation the jolt was painful. Jax knew immediately what had happened, as did the troopers; they could see the blade’s edge lose its high-speed blur. Jax dropped the weapon and extended both hands, palms-out, in a Force strike that hurled three of the troopers back against a wall. Even as he did so, however, he could sense another trooper lining up on him—
Laranth stepped into the edge of his peripheral vision, firing her blaster. The beam struck the blast meant for Jax. The air sizzled with multicolored ionized energies, flickering corposant danced along his arms and momentarily wreathed his brow, and the sound was like a thousand fire wasp nests being broken open at once.
Jax’s vision was momentarily dazzled by the pyrotechnics. I-Five’s photoreceptors, fortunately, were not. The droid fired rapidly, his laser blasts unerringly accurate. In a matter of moments it was finished. The eight stormtroopers lay sprawled in various ungainly positions, on the floor or across slurry pipes, control consoles, and other large pieces of industrial apparatus. The three hesitated a moment, wary of another possible attack. Then Jax said, “It’s over. Stand down.”
Laranth nodded and holstered her blasters. The hard-bitten Gray Paladin’s connection to the Force had no doubt told her, just as his had told Jax, that the immediate danger was past. Simultaneously the droid lowered his arms. Jax knew that I-Five had swept the room for life signs and booby traps with his sensors, and that the readings were null.
“That was exhilarating,” I-Five said. “Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy the organic predilection for violence and carnage? No? That might be because—I don’t.”
Jax grinned. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get our reluctant client to the spaceport and on that spice freighter before anyone else shows up wanting to play.” He raised his voice. “Den! Secretary Bura’lya! Let’s go!”
There was a moment of silence, and then Den’s voice came from around the corner of the hypercondenser: “I’m afraid that might be a problem.”
Jax felt himself go cold. Had they come this far, only to have the being to whom they’d promised safe passage die at the last minute? Had a stray energy bolt ricocheted from a reflective surface somewhere in the room at just the right angle to kill the undersecretary? Jax reached out with the Force, just as Den continued, “Bura’lya’s fainted. And—” The Sullustan peered around from behind the unit, his nose wrinkled. “I think he’s had an … accident.”
I-Five said, “My olfactory sensor confirms that Den is correct—assuming that had an accident in this case is a euphemism for—”
“It is,” Jax said. He sheathed his useless vibrosword and sighed. “Come on. Let’s get him cleaned up before we put him on board.”
two
There were no further impediments in getting Undersecretary Bura’lya on board the freighter Big Score, unless finding a new set of pantaloons in the spaceport duty-free that fit a Bothan counted as such. Once the ship had lifted, and I-Five’s illegal patch into the orbital grid feed had confirmed its slot for hyperspace insertion, the four headed back to their current quarters, in the downlevels sector known as the Southern Underground. This was several thousand kilometers from Jax’s previous neighborhood, the Blackpit Slums, near the equator and not far from the ruins of the Jedi Temple.
Their living quarters were, for a change, relatively upscale, which meant, as far as Den was concerned, that the roof didn’t leak and slugthrower fire hadn’t riddled the walls. Lately. As a result of the unexpected generosity of Kaird of Nedij, the former Black Sun assassin who, thanks to Jax, had been able to exit the criminal organization and return to his homeworld, they had enough credits to live comfortably for a while. Unfortunately, the same plan that had aided Kaird and saved the lives of himself and his friends had cost Jax his lightsaber. He had used it to trigger a small-scale nuclear explosion in the deserted Factory District in order to escape the clutches of both Darth Vader and the Falleen Prince Xizor. It seemed to have worked; several months had gone by, and Jax had felt no untoward “plucking” of the psionic threads that constituted the way he experienced the Force—at least, nothing that carried with it the sense of Vader’s renewed attention. The Sith Lord evidently had assumed that Jax and his companions had not escaped the blast.
“It’s not like you really need another lightsaber,” Den pointed out. “After all, there’s no surer way of saying Look, I’m a Jedi! than to go waving one around.
“Besides,” he added, “don’t you still have that other gizmo that Nick Rostu gave you?”
The “other gizmo” was an energy whip: a length of flexible, conductive metal that could be charged with a plasmatic field, which Jax had used in his battle with Prince Xizor. Ironically, the Black Sun operative had been wielding Jax’s own lightsaber against him—and not too shabbily, either, Den remembered, considering that Xizor didn’t have the help of the Force with it.
“The lightwhip? Yes,” Jax replied. “But it’s not very good for close work, or multiple opponents.”
“Even so,” Laranth said, “I agree with Den. A new lightsaber will just tempt you into more overt demonstrations of the Force. If you want Vader to know you’re alive, then by all means find another one.”
The green-skinned Twi’lek was standing by the partly opaqued window, looking down at the street below, as she spoke. She was dressed mostly in gray: leggings, tunic, and vest. This wasn’t surprising, since Laranth Tarak was one of the few surviving members of the Gray Paladins, a splinter group of Jedi who had believed, even before the overthrow of the Republic, that the Order relied entirely too much on the Force as a metaphysical panacea. Since the lightsaber’s use was nearly always augmented with the Force, they advocated proficiency in other weaponry as well. To an amazing degree, Laranth had honed her skill with the pair of DL-44 blasters she wore; Den had never seen her miss. If she shot at something, that something either vaporized, blew up, or fell over; it was a surer bet than a perfect twenty in sabacc.
Of course, Den mused, she obviously used the Force to warn her of lasers or particle beam blasts that were about to be fired at her. No one was fast enough to block something traveling at or near lightspeed. But Den was pretty sure that, if one could somehow turn off Laranth’s access to the Force, it wouldn’t affect her speed and accuracy all that much.
The Twi’lek turned her head slightly, and Den could see light reflect off the shiny scar tissue on her right cheek. That and the burned stub of her left lekku were souvenirs of the atrocity known as Flame Night. As a reporter, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking once about her part in it. “And don’t tell me I should see the other guy,” he’d cautioned.
“You can’t,” she’d replied, “unless you dig up his grave.”
She didn’t smile as she said it, but then, neither Den nor anyone else in the small group could recall seeing Laranth ever smile. There was no question in Den’s mind but that the Twi’lek’s nerves were wound tighter than the carbonite nanofibers that tethered skyhooks to the surface of Coruscant. He was glad she was on their side. He hoped she’d stay there. He’d hate to be facing the business end of her blaster.
There was only one other member of the group who could probably match the Paladin’s deadly accuracy: I-Five. As others remarked more than once, the erstwhile protocol droid, who had been Den’s friend and companion since the Battle of Drongar—and who had dragged him halfway across the galaxy to Coruscant and this current thrill-a-minute existence, he reminded himself wryly—was a rather singular droid. The word unique had even been applied. The reason for this was as simple as it was complicated: I-Five was more self-aware than any other droid that Den had ever encountered, not to mention a sizable chunk of sentients it had been the reporter’s misfortune to come across over the years. This could be partly explained by some of the modifications that Jax’s father, Lorn, had made in the droid’s synaptic grid and creativity dampeners. But Den and the others couldn’t help but feel that the droid was somehow journeying beyond even that, toward a consciousness that couldn’t be entirely the result of programming. If he wasn’t already there.
Den shook his head. He’d been slipping more and more into such esoteric reveries these days. It wasn’t a good frame of mind to stay in, especially since a large part of his current existence consisted of trying to smuggle various contraband and fugitives from the streets to the spaceports and eventually offworld. One had to be alert; one had to live in the moment and take care of business in such an environment. Philosophical musings could rarely be indulged.
Not that he was given overly much to such things anyway. In his former life—which was how he often found himself thinking of it these days; it seemed as misty and faraway as a half-remembered dream—he’d been a reporter. A newsbeing who had worked on some hot stories in his time, covered some dangerous fronts, been more than once in “humpty deep poodoo,” as some of the Ugnaughts who’d been his source for juicy newsbits back on Drongar had so colorfully put it. Drongar had by no means been the best of them, but it hadn’t been the worst, either. He’d covered the Clone Wars from Eredenn Prime to Jabiim. He’d won awards, citations, and scrolls of merit for his stories from the front. It had been hard work, dangerous work, exciting work.
These days, the memories of those times seemed like a pleasant walk in Oa Park.
Den was jarred out of his reverie by Jax’s voice. The former Jedi was saying, “—may be right. Still, given that there are more beings on Coruscant than on any other fifty inhabited worlds, I think the chances of being noticed with a lightsaber are thin, especially downlevel. And I’d rather have it and not need it than the other way around.” Jax turned and addressed another being standing in the shadows of the conapt’s foyer. “How about it, Rhinann? Can you find me a lightsaber?”
Den watched as the Elomin stepped into the lighted room. Haninum Tyk Rhinann was typical of his species: tall, angular, and bipedal. He wasn’t quite as hirsute as a Wookiee, but he came close. His nose tusks, stubby horns, and wide-set eyes all protruded from a fleshy lump that could only be recognized as a head because it sat on top of his short neck. He was depressed. This came as no particular surprise to Den or any of the others; Rhinann was always depressed. Formerly Darth Vader’s personal aide, he had fled the Dark Lord’s service, finding sanctuary at the last moment aboard the freighter Far Ranger with Jax and the others, just before the droid factory had been destroyed by the exploding reactor.
Rhinann, like the majority of his species, was a scrupulous, fastidious, meticulous, and punctilious being. For the Elomin, the reason and joy of life truly was in the details, and it had been that passion for order and precision that had convinced Vader to designate Rhinann his aide-de-camp. Unfortunately, along with that painstaking attention to minutiae came an outlook of extreme suspicion upon his life in general and his employer in particular. Den remembered reading somewhere that expatriated Elomin were prone to psychoses of various sorts—including, it seemed, paranoia. Rhinann had become convinced that Vader would sooner or later have him killed for some minor infraction or dereliction of duty, and it had been that fear as much as the very sensible desire to avoid imminent de-atomization that had driven him to jump ship.
Since then, Rhinann had been an unwilling fugitive. He yearned to return to his homeworld of Elom, but his share of the credits bequeathed by Kaird wasn’t nearly enough to persuade a merchant ship’s captain to carry one passenger all the way to a world on the Outer Rim, far from the trade lanes. And so he’d stayed with those who had rescued him. His exacting nature and near-fanatical attention to detail had easily dictated his job within the group; Rhinann was the go- to being, the procurer. Whatever was needed—from delicacies such as Geniserian sand monkey flambéed in foyvè oil to please a client’s epicurean palate to an outmoded widget essential for repairing an aging holoproj unit—Rhinann could put his hands on it.
Except, it seemed, a lightsaber.
“It’s not possible,” he said dolefully, in response to Jax’s query. “The weapons of the Jedi were destroyed along with the Jedi. There are rumors that some lightsabers remain in private collections of the extremely wealthy. But the only one that I am certain truly exists belongs to Darth Vader, and I doubt he’d part with it willingly.”
“Good call,” Den said.
“A crystal, then. I’ll build my own. It’ll be more in tune with my—”
“Adegan crystals, as well as Corusca, Ilum, and others, are all under strict trade and commerce interdiction, per the orders of Emperor Palpatine.”
“I’ll grow one, then.” But Jax didn’t sound quite as determined as he had a moment before, and Den was pretty sure he knew why. Although as recently as a couple of standard years ago, what he’d known about lightsaber technology and Jedi tradition would have rattled around in a green flea’s ear, he’d learned a lot since then from listening to Jax and Laranth, as well as from Barriss Offee, back in their days on Drongar. He knew that the use of naturally occurring crystals, as opposed to synthetic ones, was one of the ways Jedi had distinguished themselves from the Sith. The ostensible reason was that the synthetics weren’t quite as pure as the crystals mined from the caves of various worlds, and there was always the chance that one could fail at a critical moment. And, since practically every moment a lightsaber was activated was perforce a critical one, Den could see the merit of the argument. He wondered, however, how much of that was based on experience and how much on doctrine. It was well known that the Jedi had, by the time of the Republic’s downfall, effectively hobbled themselves with their dependence on rote and cant. As nasty as the Sith had been in ages past, Den had to admit that they’d been more practical by far in many areas.
“That may be possible,” Rhinann said, in answer to Jax’s last statement. “It will take some time, however, to assemble all the necessary equipment and materials. In the meantime, I suggest this.” He withdrew from beneath his robes what appeared to Den at first to be an antique sword. The blade was slightly longer than a meter in length and pale silver, almost white, in color. The metal was not chased, although, Den realized, there did appear to be delicate whorls and patterns woven through it. They almost seemed to move, like oil on water.
The hilt was ornate but functional. It looked like it was made of electrum, a rare fusion of silver and gold. Mounted in the guard were two small faceted crystals that scintillated even in the relatively dim interior light.
All in all, very pretty, Den had to concede. Even impressive. But insofar as being able to block a blaster bolt, it seemed about as effective as a pointed stick.
Jax seemed somewhat nonplussed as well. Both I-Five and Laranth stepped forward for a closer look. There was wonder in the Paladin’s normally grim face.
“A Velmorian energy sword.” She looked at Rhinann incredulously. “You couldn’t find a lightsaber, but you could find this?”
The Elomin shrugged. “Things are tough all over. I was able to obtain this in an online auction from a member of the Velmorian royal family who had fallen upon hard times.”
Laranth shook her head and took the sword from Rhinann. Den watched as she extended it. He didn’t see her do anything to activate it, but the length of the blade suddenly blazed with a cold and crackling silver flame.
“There’s something you don’t see every day,” Den murmured.
The Paladin carefully handed the energy sword to Jax. He held the weapon up, admiring the coruscating shifting waves of power. It was quite different from a lightsaber, and it lacked the latter’s purity of design. Still, it was obviously a weapon to be reckoned with. It seemed much more akin, as far as the mechanics of it went, to the lightwhip.
“It’s activated by a pressure pad in the hilt,” Laranth explained. “The generator feeds plasmatic energy through the crystals and along the blade. A magnetic feedback loop contains it.”
Jax relaxed his grip experimentally, watching the superheated gas retreat, leaving the blade as it was before. He held his other hand close to the metal. “No heat,” he murmured.
“The containment loop keeps the plasma from direct contact with the blade. Otherwise it would melt.”
Jax squeezed the hilt, triggering the plasmatic coating once more. He swung the weapon a few times, testing its weight and balance. “Easy there, big fella,” Den said, backing up quickly.
Jax moved through a few steps of one of the seven forms. There was more weight to the energy sword than there was to the lance of pure energy that was a lightsaber, of course, but nothing that he couldn’t compensate for easily enough. Since it was a sheath of energy surrounding a solid blade, it obviously did not have the same frictionless edge that a saber had. He wondered how it measured up against a vibrosword.
Well, he thought grimly, if life continues to be as interesting as it has been, I’ve no doubt I’ll find out. Sooner, probably, than later.
three
“It’s only a rumor,” Dejah said nervously. “Put it out of your mind. Your only obsession must be your work—now, especially.”
Ves Volette shook his head, the short, golden fur covering his shoulders and neck rippling in reaction to the tense muscles beneath the skin. “Normally, I would agree with you,” he said. “But I can’t ignore this. I must ascertain the truth.”
His partner looked at him with an expression difficult to read, even for Ves, who had been with her for the last seven years. “Tonight,” Dejah said, “will be the crowning achievement of your life and your art—thus far, at least. You can’t allow anything to distract you.”
“Not even genocide, Deej? Not even the extermination of a species? My species?”
“You don’t know if it’s true. It’s just a rumor. You—”
“I can find out,” Ves said, “easily enough.” He turned to the uplink terminal next to the workbench; it was only a few steps away, like everything in the small studio behind the gallery. The gallery itself was large enough to hold six of his latest pieces; any more would seem cramped. Each piece needed its own area within which to radiate.
Ves called up a holoproj of the ’Net and entered his query. It didn’t take long to find the news item he sought.
MYSTERIOUS DISASTER STRIKES CAAMAS
SCANS HAVE CONFIRMED THAT THE POPULATION OF THE CORE WORLD CAAMAS HAS BEEN DECIMATED IN A PLANETARY APOCALYPSE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. ORBITAL INVESTIGATION TEAMS SAY THE MOST PROBABLE CAUSE IS A CLUSTER OF HIGH-YIELD ACTINIUM BOMBS, NO DOUBT OF SEPARATIST ORIGIN, THAT HAD BEEN DRIFTING THROUGH THE CORE SYSTEMS SINCE THE END OF THE CLONE WARS. IT IS ESTIMATED THAT 70 TO 85 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION HAS DIED FROM THE EXPLOSIONS AND SUBSEQUENT FIRESTORMS …
Accompanying the news story were holos of the devastation. Ves could see the charred remnants of cities. Entire forests, encompassing thousands of square kilometers, were still ablaze, the obscuring smoke visible from high orbit.
My world is gone, he thought. Not literally; the globe was still there, orbiting around its sun, but the Caamasi civilization would likely never recover. The Empire could try to spin the disaster as a result of leftover munitions from the war, as if any sentient with even a Level Three education couldn’t realize how slim the odds of a bomb cluster just happening to hit a planet, even in the Outer Core, were. The truth was there, for anyone who could read between the data lines.
Amazing, how calmly he was accepting it. That, of course, was due to shock. He hadn’t accepted it, not at all. Not yet. He wondered clinically if, when his brain finally let it in, he would go mad.
Caamas. His world. His people. Reduced from shining civilization to near barbarism—the few that were still alive—in less than a day.
And the Emperor had given the order.
Of that Ves Volette was certain. He was apolitical, but he wasn’t stupid. Only a ruler as paranoid and ruthless as Palpatine would be threatened by a planet of pacifists. His people had done nothing wrong; they had merely exercised their right, under the Galactic Constitution, to protest the extreme restrictions and tax hikes the Empire was levying on art, science, philosophy, and other modes of consilience.
His people. Quiet, reserved, knowledgeable, compassionate … it had been said that the Jedi, when attempting to formulate the consistent ethos that eventually became the Jedi Code, had gone to the Caamasi for guidance. No more. No one would visit his once-beautiful homeworld now, save possibly to stare in outraged shock at the devastation of a planet that once had been a beacon of rationality.
Ves gasped and staggered, suddenly beset by a memnis, a sense-memory so intense that, for a moment, the small and cozy surroundings of his workshop vanished, to be replaced by his home in Jualya Village, the picturesque hamlet in which he’d grown up, nestled in the rolling hills of Kanupian. He was standing in his den, looking out at the tartapple orchard, admiring the opalescent tints the rising sun was striking off the glossy leaves and silver skins of the ripe fruits. He could hear songfish piping in the nearby stream.
He remembered the actuality, when it had taken place: three standard months before he had left Caamas and came to Coruscant to light sculpt, to capture in controlled photons universal emotions, feelings common to nearly every sentient being of the galaxy, to display and, he’d hoped, to sell his work. Although Caamasi were overall nonmaterialistic, they weren’t foolish. As the philosopher Hyoca Lans once put it, “The problem in galactic society at large is not that there are too many poor sentients—it’s that there are too few rich ones.” There was nothing wrong with capitalism—as long as it was accompanied by some form of egalitarian ethos.
The memnis ability was a primordial, ingrained aptitude coded in the Caamasi genome, unique to the species. They typically occurred at times of great stress, and were nearly always linked somehow to the stressor. He’d only had one before, as a child, when a beloved nest uncle had died. Ves frowned in puzzlement. This memnis, this recollection of a pastoral moment not long before he’d left Caamas—how could it possibly be linked to the mundicidal horror of which he’d just learned?
He soon found out.
Ves felt a sudden … disturbance. A soundless roar, a lightless flash, a vibrationless tremor, not moving, yet somehow propagating nevertheless at terrifying speed toward him. The memnis shattered, fragmenting into sharp shards like the psionic equivalent of brittle duralumin, hurtling toward him, accompanied by the silent screams and cries of an entire world dying.
He understood at last what was happening. Caamasi typically shared these grief memories with others of their kind, in an attempt to spread, and so dissipate, the sorrow. What he was feeling right now were the memnii of millions of others of his kind, a wave front of agony, confusion, despair, and disbelief that transcended time and space. His individual sense-memory had been symbolic, an expression of the population’s peace and tranquillity that had been so suddenly and horrifyingly decimated.
Myriad experiences ripped through his mind like emotional shrapnel. There was no resisting it, no hiding from it. He felt every Caamasi on the planet die.
Dimly, a thousand light-years away, he heard Dejah shouting his name, felt his worried partner help him over to the davenport to lie down. But lying down or standing up made no difference; there was no escape or respite. It was all he could do to hang on to his self, to keep his consciousness from being torn to tatters and sucked into the maelstrom.
Finally, after untold eons of horror, it began to subside. Ves came back to himself, to his own focal point in the cosmos, shuddering and sweating, but alive and, by some miracle, still sane.
Deej was sitting beside him, worry creasing her brow. “Are you all right?” When Ves managed to nod weakly, she exhaled in relief. “What happened?”
“A memnis.”
Deej looked at him. Being a Zeltron, she had some experience with empathic resonance, and she had been with Ves long enough to be familiar with the concept of shared memories. “I didn’t know they could be that intense.”
Ves briefly explained what had happened. His partner and friend looked horrified. “After such a shock, you can’t put on the exhibit tonight. We must postpone.”
Ves shook his head. “No. It is more important than ever now that we open as planned. As long as one Caamasi lives and can create, the Emperor has failed.”
Ves lurched to his feet, his head feeling as if a comet had just impacted it. Dejah stood as well, offering her hand in concern, but Ves waved it off. “Offer my apologies to the clientele; tell them that illness prevents me from attending.” He moved over to his workbench and activated the plasmatic flux inducer. An oscillating hum quickly rose to the edge of hearing; a parabolic cone of blue light, a meter tall, materialized. Ves fed torsion into it, adjusted the ellipsis. The flame of plasma twisted and gave a low, electronic moan.
Ves glanced at the wall chrono. “It’s almost time,” he said. “You’d better get ready to let them in.”
Deej hesitated, then nodded in defeat. “All right. I suppose you know what you’re doing.” She exited, closing the door.
Ves concentrated on the torqued spearhead of light. He added neon, krypton, xenon; the plasma flushed red, green, blue. He adjusted tinctures, spun the result through various arcs.
Simplicity—that was the key, of course. The emotional power lay in that. Dejah was right; Ves knew exactly what he was doing.
He was building a cairn.
four
Jax breathed slowly, deeply, as Master Piell had taught him. With each exhalation he pushed his awareness out farther, letting the threads of energy that were his connection with the Force expand.
Many of the Jedi, his tutor had told him, had experienced their unification with the Force in various symbolic ways that they likened to aspects of the real world. For example, Master Piell had always found the metaphor of water best suited his link to it. Jax, on the other hand, felt and “saw” the Force as threads, or strings, stretching and reverberating through space and time, connecting everything. For him, to be aware of another’s aura was to see the person swathed in a cocoon of variegated light or darkness. To sense something at a distance, tendrils of Force established themselves instantaneously between him and the object he sought. To augment his own physical powers, such as running or leaping, he let himself be lifted and carried by them, or used an invisible “lasso” to bring objects within reach. Now he sent those threads questing outward, probing and searching, until they encountered that which he sought.
As though it in turn sensed his contact, the floating remote droid let loose a volley of laser beams aimed at him, simultaneously zipping from one midair position to the next as it fired. Jax, blindfolded, whipped up the energy sword, countering each burst by knowing, before it was fired, which direction it would come from. One … two … three … four … five …
The sixth, and last, beam stung him painfully on the right side.
“Blast!” Jax pulled off the blindfold and spoke the deactivation code for the remote, which drifted to the floor. He sat down on the extruded lip of a wall couch and looked ruefully at the weapon in his hand.
“I see it’s remote one, human zero,” a voice said. Jax looked up to see I-Five in the doorway of the small, enclosed courtyard in which the Jedi had been practicing.
“I’m beginning to think that Laranth is right,” Jax said. “The Jedi should have practiced more with other weapons.” He grimaced. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“On the other hand, no one but a Jedi could have blocked five out of six beams.”
Jax shrugged. “It makes no difference if it’s the sixth one or the first one that kills you. Dead is dead.”
“I wouldn’t know. I do know, however,” I-Five said, “that you’re much better with that sword than you think you are.”
Jax glanced down at the weapon, saw his distorted reflection looking back at him from the blade’s surface. “Yeah? How do you know th—?”
I-Five suddenly whipped up his left hand, index finger extended, and fired a laser beam at Jax. The beam splashed off the ionized fire that suddenly coated the length of the blade, which Jax had automatically raised to block the beam.
“That’s how,” I-Five said. “The speed of light is just under three hundred thousand kilometers per second. You are currently seven-point-three meters from me. Your Force-augmented anticipatory reflex action is obviously working fine. You just have to let it.”
Jax grinned. “You sure you’re not carrying a Jedi Master template somewhere in that droid brain of yours?”
“Maker forbid. I’d like to think that even preprogrammed mechanical intelligences are less rigid than the Jedi were.”
Jax’s smile faded. The droid projected concern. “My apologies, Jax. Even protocol droids can be indecorous at times. I was out of line.”
“I’m not upset at your opinion. What gets to me is—you’re right. Every living species in the galaxy knows that one either adapts or dies. It’s not a difficult concept. Why didn’t the Council understand it? Why couldn’t they recognize the danger until it was too late?”
“Assuming for the moment that the question isn’t rhetorical,” I-Five said, “all I can offer is an observation your father made once, more than twenty-five years ago. He was a Temple employee, as you know, and had an opportunity to observe his employers closely. Even before he became so biased against them for what he felt was your kidnapping, Lorn was under no illusions about Jedi stagnation and complacency.
“He told me of references he’d found in datafiles to someone they called the Chosen One … a being whose coming was foretold and said to be imminent, who would restore balance to the Force. Perhaps they were waiting for this being to come and accomplish for them what they were unable or unwilling to do for themselves. It was your father’s opinion—and I’ve watched the behavior of enough organic sentients in my travels to heartily agree—that whenever they give up their own judgment to some sort of fanciful higher power, instead of looking for answers within themselves and their actions, they are the worse for it.”
Jax nodded thoughtfully. Of course he had heard the rumors that Anakin Skywalker, protégé of the noted Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, was this Chosen One. But Jax had no way of knowing. He had not been privy to such exclusive information. Only a rank-and-file Jedi, he had barely achieved Jedi Knighthood immediately before the Order’s destruction. But it made as much sense as anything else in a galactic society gone mad. Though he had been one of the very few Padawans who had been able to call Anakin Skywalker friend, Jax had not been then, and was not now, under any illusions about the powerful young Jedi’s mood swings. He remembered once sensing Anakin’s aura, perceiving it as strands of blackest night stretching multidimensionally in every direction.
Why hadn’t the Council seen it, as well? Or had they just chosen to ignore it?
“You may be right,” he finally told I-Five. “Or at least, partly right. I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.”
A sudden mental onslaught struck him, unexpected and powerful enough to literally knock him to his knees. Something had just happened, somewhere in the galaxy. Something involving such monstrous pain and death that it had set the threads connecting him to the Force to vibrating like the Balawai Creation gong. He sensed millions upon millions of lives extinguished in some kind of global holocaust. Dropping the energy sword, he cupped his face in both hands and moaned.
“Jax?” I-Five’s hands were made of hard alloy, yet their touch was gentle as the droid took him by the shoulders and turned him, leaning down to peer intently into his face. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”
“Death.” Jax was barely able to croak the word. “Death’s happened. The cry in the night. Mass destruction, somewhere. They’re all … all …”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. The crushing weight of the tragedy that had been thrust upon him barely left room enough for respiration. Somewhere, on some world in the known galaxy, millions upon millions of people had cried out as with one voice—and then had fallen silent, forever. Although the room still seemed to be spinning on its axis, he struggled to his feet. I-Five began to remonstrate, but Jax pushed past him and headed for the front room.
He hoped he was wrong. Hoped with all his heart that this massive disturbance in the Force had been due to something else, anything else. But he knew it wasn’t so, and his certainty was given added corroboration when he saw Laranth’s face. As expressionless and closed off as she could sometimes be, still he recognized the haunted look in her eyes. He knew it mirrored his own.
“Caamas,” she announced tightly.
The location of the catastrophe was almost as great a shock as the initial psychic tsunami that had convulsed the Force only a few minutes previously. Caamas? A world populated by beings who had repeatedly raised the bar for other species through their remarkable achievements in the arts and philosophy? Jax stared in utter disbelief. It made no sense. The Caamasi were gentle, educated beings, for the most part. Their world was one of the very few to maintain a planetary militia instead of a regular professional army. Only someone as paranoid as Palpatine could possibly think that …
Jax realized then what it was, what it had to have been, and the realization left a sour taste of bile in the back of his mouth. Of course. Caamas was the perfect example, guaranteed to pound home the message that the Emperor was too firmly ensconced to be overthrown. His action would demonstrate that if he was crazy enough, or just plain cruel enough, to obliterate a world of scholars and artisans, what was there to stop him from doing the same thing to Corellia, or Alderaan, or Dantooine, or any of a thousand and one other planets?
Nothing whatsoever, as far as Jax could see. And that, of course, was the point.
He felt, to his surprise, a sudden surge of anger against the Jedi—against his own people. Why had they closed themselves off, shirked the duties and responsibilities that had been theirs for thousands of generations? If they hadn’t, perhaps none of this would have happened. If they had been more receptive, they might have sensed the threat in their midst before it struck. A burst of awareness that manifested itself through the Force with absolute surety. Suddenly Jax knew. He didn’t know why, he didn’t know if it had anything to do with the echoes of the dead and dying Caamasi still reverberating in his mind, he didn’t know if it was totally unconnected and just a random flash of insight from the Force—but he suddenly knew one incontrovertible fact:
Anakin Skywalker was still alive.
five
Death came for her in the mining tunnels of Oovo 4.
Aurra Sing was working in one of the branch tunnels, a narrow fissure in the black rock, barely wide enough for her to stretch one arm straight from the shoulder. The vein of zenium she’d been following for the last three days was running dry; she estimated that in less than a meter it would diminish to the point that it would no longer be cost-effective to keep mining.
She lowered her protective faceplate. Except for the dark gray-black circles around her eyes that made them appear deeper than they were, the skin of her face and body were as pure white as the veined marble the miners occasionally encountered in their digging. The single thick shock of long reddish-brown hair gathered together by a band at the top of her skull was stunning by comparison.
She aimed the gasifier at the left side of the rock face, through which the lode of zenium stitched like a frozen bolt of purple electricity. The high-energy beam turned the rock into plasma almost instantaneously, and the incandescent gas was sucked away through a hose woven of carbonite nanofibers, to be vented through shafts that perforated the strata between where she stood and the surface.
Sing gasified the remaining rock that encased the zenium. She struck the exposed sheet—which, though only a couple of centimeters thick, was as tall as she was—with a small sonic tool, finding the cleavage lines with skill born of years of practice. The zenium fractured into several smaller, roughly hexagonal pieces. These she gathered up and stacked in the ore carrier. Disconnecting the gasifier line, she loaded it into the carrier as well, then stepped on the plate and activated the repulsor.
As the carrier zoomed soundlessly back toward the main shaft, passing through brief flickering pools of light cast by sconces that alternated with stretches of utter darkness, Sing wearily checked her rebreather’s status. The filter’s diffusion index was still green, she noted, although it had long since declined from optimal.
She tried to remember how the galaxy’s Outer Rim had looked from the observation deck of the pirate ship, so long ago. It had been many years. How many, Sing herself wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of a great many things about herself, including her age and her species. She knew her mother had been human, but her father’s ancestry was a mystery. Those she had worked for, including Wallanooga the Hutt, had speculated that he had been Qiraash, Rattataki, Umbaran, perhaps even Anzati. Never mind that none of these could interbreed with humans without a certain amount of genetic tinkering, and that none of those genomes could account for her longevity. So her origins remained a mystery, even to herself.
The past held no interest for Aurra Sing. All that mattered was the now.
Over the course of a long and eventful life Sing had learned to conserve energy and bide her time when the situation she happened to find herself in was less than satisfactory. In this respect her longevity served her well. She had survived onerous conditions before, and would again. If she could not shoot or fight her way out of a situation, then she would simply and patiently outlast it.
After all, one did not become known as a hunter of Jedi by being reckless.
It was hard to believe that she had once nearly embraced the Jedi Code. The Jedi Master known as the Dark Woman would never know how close she had come to converting her headstrong young Padawan. Had she not been kidnapped and taught the truth by the pirates—a rich irony, that—Aurra Sing might have been one of those sanctimonious wearers of sackcloth herself. And as a result, she might very well be dead now; just one more victim of Order Sixty-six, like the rest of the Jedi.
Well, good riddance to them. The only regret Sing had in that regard was that there were precious few left for her to hunt down and kill these days.
As she approached one of the ancillary shafts that connected with the surface, she began to see other beings. All were engaged in some aspects of zenium mining. An inescapable corollary of the activity was that none of them looked good. Even with the osmotic filters, zenium dust eventually found its way into respiratory systems—be they lungs, stomata, trachea, or whatever. Breathe it long enough and you came down with pyroliosis, or “firelung”—a condition that literally consumed you from the inside. In humanoids it ate up the aveoli like so much dry acid: an extremely painful way to die.
This was one reason only the most incorrigible criminals were sent to Oovo 4. Outside the occasional Podrace to blow off steam, the daily routine stopped only when the prisoner died.
Ironically, the mines on Oovo 4 were among the few labor camps in the galaxy in which organics actually outlasted droids. Despite shielding, the zenium dust affected droids’ perceptor systems almost immediately, causing them to crash into the mining equipment and one another. In contrast, it took the more resilient organics several years to wear out. Their presence in the mines was a matter of cost-effectiveness, not ethics.
She saw Karundabar, an old Wookiee who had been down in the hole for so long he had forgotten the crime that had initially landed him here. He was nearly bald, his hair having fallen out over most of his body through the years. She watched him dump a pile of ore plates into a lift tube that would take it to Receiving on the surface. Almost blind, to judge by the cataracts that filmed his eyes, he had followed the route so often that he didn’t need to see to do the job.
As Sing dumped her own load of plates into another tube, she kept her senses on full alert. Her connection to the Force would warn her of any imminent assault, sometimes even before it was initiated. That, and her deadly reputation, had kept her alive all these months in this rancor pit. Both would continue to do so.
Or so she thought …
The attack, when it came, was thus doubly surprising—first that anyone would dare attack her at all, and second because the Force had not warned her of it. Fortunately, that enigmatic energy was not her only ally. Even though the misbegotten Jedi flooz Aayla Secura had cut the antenna of her biocomputer implant, it still was capable of sensing danger at close range. That was what warned her now, barely in time, of the Trandoshan with the shiv who was lunging at her from behind.
Sing sidestepped, knowing from long practice just how much movement was necessary to allow the thrust to miss. The sonic blade slipped by less than a centimeter from her alabaster skin; she could feel the breeze it generated. As the big reptilian stumbled, thrown off-balance by missing his target, Sing caught him in an armlock and snapped his elbow.
True to his heritage, the scaly creature did not lose more jagannath points by screaming. Internalizing the pain, he hissed in anger. But he could not keep from gasping as Sing swung the broken arm up, dislocating his shoulder joint, and simultaneously used her leg to sweep her assailant off his feet. The Trandoshan hit the rocky floor of the shaft with a sickly thud. Snatching the shiv from his nerveless hand, Sing dropped to one knee beside him and prepared to drive the blade into his throat.
“Enough.”
A life-sized three-dimensional image appeared before her. It was the projection of a human: a man sheathed in what appeared to be black armor, wearing a helmet of strange design and enfolded in a black cloak and tabard. At first sight Sing thought that everything about the image was unrelievedly black. Then she saw he wore a small chest panel with blinking red and green lights. Doubtless some form of biosystem monitor allowing for externalized connection to recharge critical life-support components.
She recognized the figure, of course. One could hardly live in the developed portion of the galaxy, or even on its fringes, and not have heard of Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith. His origins were shrouded in mystery and rife with rumor: He was a centuries-old Sith Lord, reanimated by the sheer force of the Emperor’s will; he was the last rogue Jedi; he was a genetically optimized clone, the ultimate warrior; he was a cyborg, some kind of specialized battle droid given human form.
Sing had no idea which if any of the rumors might be true, although Vader’s alleged unequaled proficiency with a lightsaber would seem to argue for the first or second possibility. Her gaze automatically went to where the traditional Jedi weapon was attached to his belt. A sensible sentient would have been immediately intimidated by the Dark Lord’s appearance. Aurra Sing smiled; a lazy, feral smile.
Vader’s image regarded her in silence for a moment; then it spoke. The sound, like the image, was slightly distorted from its long journey through hyperspace.
“Your reflexes are quite impressive, bounty hunter. You have temporarily cost me the use of a trained assassin.”
Sing spared a glance at the Trandoshan, still lying on the floor and whimpering softly as he tried to snap his broken arm back into its shoulder socket. Her gaze returned to the ebon image. “You set this one on me? Why?”
Vader nodded once. “Just so. I was curious to see if you were still at your peak after your time in the mines. I now—”
“You’re wise,” she interrupted the projection, “to stay in a safe haven parsecs away. This one”—she nudged the reptiloid with her foot—“just served to keep me from falling asleep after a day’s work. Were you here in the flesh I’d—”
Vader raised a black-gloved hand, and Sing paused.
“I have a job for you,” the Dark Lord continued. “Do it well, and I’ll personally commute your sentence. Do it poorly, and you’ll be back here breathing zenium dust until it eats you alive from the inside out. Are you interested?”
Sing was aware that the other prisoners nearby had halted their activities and were looking on in fascination. She also saw that three of her more brutish fellow miners were scowling in her direction. She could feel their resentment at this unexpected offer of clemency for her.
“You offer me a choice a fool could make.”
“I didn’t think you would require much convincing.”
Their agreement concluded, at that point she expected the image to implode and vanish. She was somewhat surprised when it did not. Instead, the simulacrum stood silently, watching.
She turned to face the three prisoners she had noticed a moment earlier. Two were human; the third was a Shistavanen. All three continued to glare enviously at her, each waiting for one of the others to make the first move. Sing smiled. It was plain now why Vader had not ended the transmission.
The test wasn’t over yet.
six
“Anakin Skywalker? The Anakin Skywalker? The Jedi hero of the Clone Wars?”
“You sound skeptical,” Jax told Den.
“I am skeptical. In fact,” Den added, “I’d say skeptical isn’t nearly strong enough. I think I’ll have to go with incredulous.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Laranth put in from nearby. “All the Jedi—present company excepted—are dead.”
Jax met her gaze evenly. “As you said, present company excepted. We’ve managed to stay alive all these months. Why couldn’t he have as well?”
I-Five responded before the Twi’lek could. “Along with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu, Anakin Skywalker was one of the most storied heroes of the Republic. Their battles and missions are the stuff of legend, or so my research would suggest. Ever since the end of the Clone Wars, there have been sightings of them reported from the Outer Rim all the way to the Tingel Arm. Not one has ever been confirmed.”
Jax didn’t reply immediately. He could certainly understand the others’ reservations. He would have been equally dubious—had he not experienced the absolute certainty that often came with revelations granted by the Force. In this case, there was simply no room for doubt.
He told them as much. “There’s no way I can convince you of it, I know. But knowledge gained through the Force can’t be discounted. If I had to choose between the evidence of my senses and that which is revealed to me through my connection with the Force, I’d go with the Force every time.”
Den shrugged. “Since I make it a point never to argue with zealots, let’s just say I believe in your belief in it. But even assuming it to be true—and I say this with all due respect—so what? I mean, it would make an interesting ribbon for the holos, but since the only way you can prove the truth of it is to reveal yourself as a Jedi, it all strikes me as a little counterproductive.”
“I’m not suggesting that. In fact, I’m not sure what I’m suggesting, if anything. It just hit me, just now. You couldn’t say we were friends, since I don’t think Anakin ever let anyone get close enough to justify the term. But he relied on me enough to trust me with something, once.”
“A nugget of pyronium,” Rhinann recalled. “You showed it to us before.”
“Oh yeah,” Den mused. “The rainbow rock. Goes through all the colors. Very nice. Does it do anything besides shine?”
“Indeed it does,” I-Five said. “What makes refined pyronium so rare and valuable is that its ability to absorb energy of varying quanta is extraordinarily high. If left exposed to any frequency of electromagnetic radiation of sufficient intensity, its atomic structure stores it. It is theorized that when the quantum shells are filled, the additional energy is somehow shunted into a correlative hyperspatial lattice that …”
Jax, grinning, reached behind the droid’s neck as if to flip the master deactivation toggle at the base of the latter’s metal skull. The droid glared at him and stepped away. “My mistake,” he said. “For a brief moment I was laboring under the delusion that I was dealing with beings possessing a sense of curiosity. How could I have been so naïve?”
“Don’t get your circuits in a twist,” Den chided his friend. “I was actually faintly interested in what you were saying.” He returned his attention to Jax. “I can’t help but wonder if this latest Force flash of yours isn’t somehow connected to the Caamasi holocaust. Of course, you’re the one with your veins all crammed full of little Force critters, so you’d know better than me.”
Before Jax or I-Five could respond, Laranth, who had been standing by the door, turned suddenly toward it. One hand went to a pistol hilt as she said quietly, “We have a visitor.”
Conversation ceased as everyone turned toward the door. They were in the front room of the domicile, from which the smaller separate sleeping quarters branched off. Jax edged quietly a step closer to the doorway, reaching out with the Force as he did so, letting its threads pass through walls and floors as easily as neutrinos through cosmic dust. Laranth was right: he could sense someone on the stairs. Female, advancing with a light, confident step. He wasn’t able to ascertain if she was human, but she was definitely humanoid, and young.
He perceived no malice or hint of dangerous agenda in her purpose, but that was not conclusive proof of harmlessness. She might be very skilled at blocking her thoughts and feelings. He glanced at Laranth, received a slight nod that confirmed his assessment of the situation. Both relaxed slightly, and Jax activated the door panel. It slid open to reveal the figure of a young, humanoid female. She looked slightly startled as the portal hissed to one side without her having touched the external call pad. Jax stared. She was fully humanoid, all right.
She was also the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Her skin was cardinal red. Her thick, wavy hair was darker, a shade closer to burgundy. The irises of her wide-open eyes were a shocking scarlet. Not much shorter than him, she wore a one-piece garment that at its densest seemed to be about two molecules thick. Despite bordering on vapor, the material swirled and eddied with vivid colors.
Almost without his volition, the Force reached out and wrapped about her to sample her aura. What he felt was a sensation of rust, a dolorous mental shade very much at odds with her vibrant appearance. She peered into the room, and her tone was cautiously hopeful as she spoke.
“Please tell me one of you is Jax Pavan.”
The Carrack light cruiser made a reasonably steady landing on the pad at Westport. Captain Typho was among the first to disembark. It would have been a pleasant enough voyage, with his rank in the Naboo military giving him preferential status in terms of accommodations and food, had he not been consumed with his mission. But despite the pleasures available to one of his rank on board ship, all he could think of was reaching Coruscant and pursuing the course that obsessed him. It had taken several months to clear up various obligations on Naboo so that he could proceed at his task totally unencumbered. Now he was finally here.
He had watched from the main viewport as the ship had descended. It had been hard, very hard, not to feel completely overwhelmed by the sight of the endless cityscape that stretched in all directions below him. As far as he could see, the snarl of streets, towers, plazas, stadiums, and countless other buildings and thoroughfares covered the surface, all of it stippled with flickering shadows thrown by the fast-moving repulsor-driven traffic above. Cosseted remnants of the original planetary biota, occasional patches of green and blue, peeped through the immense cityscape. But they were few and very far between.
It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, of course. In his capacity as Padmé’s bodyguard he had visited the city-planet several times previously. But on those occasions he hadn’t been faced with the daunting task of tracking down a killer among the teeming trillions that populated the global labyrinth. It seemed utterly impossible, and Typho felt despair fill him. Where, in all this enormous endless urban sprawl, would he even begin to look for a surviving Jedi when so many believed all the Jedi were dead?
He squared his shoulders and set his jaw. No task was ever accomplished by cowering before it. If he continued to feel this way, he would be defeated before he had even begun. And Padmé Amidala would forever rest uneasily in her grave.
That could not be permitted.
A modest distance to the northeast of Westport lay the ruins of the Jedi Temple. Any investigation or exploration of them was forbidden by Imperial fiat. But such interdictions held little meaning for a soldier. Typho would begin his investigation with Anakin Skywalker, presumably the last Jedi to see Padmé alive. If he had survived Mustafar, some hint of his whereabouts might be found in the shattered remnants of his former sanctuary. And if such a clue existed, Typho would find it.
The captain set out upon his quest.
“I’m Jax Pavan.”
The crimson woman looked relieved. It took Den a moment to identify her as a Zeltron. A small pang of worry rippled through him at this realization. Zeltrons, if he was remembering correctly, were exceptional representations of humanoid beauty, at least as far as other humans were concerned. In addition they, like the Falleen and some other mammalian species, shed pheromones that made them even more irresistible.
In short, not a species that made it easy to be objective.
The Sullustan cast a quick glance at Jax. Hard to tell what he was thinking. Den had become fairly adept at reading humans over the years—but not that good. Jax didn’t look particularly smitten, however, even though the Zeltron seemed to be a prime example of human pulchritude. It was all academic to Den, of course. He took note of her beauty the same way he would recognize a thoroughbred of any sort.
“My name is Dejah Duare,” the Zeltron said. “I’ve come to you for help.”
Den watched his friends. Jax and Laranth glanced at each other, and the Sullustan guessed that they had both checked this visitor out through the Force. Whether she had passed or not remained to be seen. As for I-Five, though the mechanical was capable of projecting a surprising range of “expressions,” he was now in full droid mode, pretending to be nothing more than a simple protocol unit. Rhinann showed little interest in the encounter. This wasn’t unusual. These days the Elomin was pretty much in a perpetual funk.
Dejah was looking from Jax to Laranth as she spoke. “I’ve heard that you aid people who want to leave Coruscant. Is this true? I can pay you.”
Considering that those last four words made up one of Den’s favorite sentences, he felt impelled to speak up. “You heard right,” he proclaimed briskly. “For the right price we can get you off this overpopulated rock and into a new life offworld that’ll—”
Laranth silenced him with a look that stopped just short of singeing his eyebrows. Alternately mortified and irate, Den subsided.
“Payment isn’t necessary. Tell us what you have in mind,” Jax said. “How many people would be going?”
“Just two—my business partner, Ves Volette, and myself.”
I-Five spoke up. “Your pardon, but would that be the famous Caamasi light sculptor of the same name?”
She looked startled. “Yes. He is—was—quite well known—on his homeworld.” She was suddenly upset, so much so that she could hardly finish the sentence. It didn’t take a brain the size of a planet to understand why. Even if Jax and Laranth had not just been front and center, metaphysically speaking, for the event, Caamas’s shocking destruction had lately been the talk of the general media.
“You fear for his future,” Laranth said, “and for your own, by association.”
This was, as far as Den was concerned, an entirely reasonable concern. If the Emperor had gone to the trouble of destroying the Caamasi homeworld, for whatever reason, then it followed that he would take care to keep tabs on any survivors who might keep the issue alive by asking awkward questions. Already the general media was seeking them out. A small but vocal and active minority was an inconvenience someone like Palpatine would surely rather do without. Which no doubt meant anyone aiding such survivors would also come in for increased Imperial scrutiny. Den swallowed, running his finger around a suddenly too-tight collar. His initial enthusiasm for taking on this particular new client was fading fast.
“Yes, I do,” the Zeltron said in belated response to Laranth’s query. She gave Jax an imploring look. “Please help us. Ves isn’t a coward, but like many artists he has little sense of the way galactic society works. I’m afraid he might do something reckless and vengeful, like producing a work deliberately insulting to the Emperor. That could get us both killed.”
Her skin flushed an ever-so-slightly darker shade of red as she spoke. Den knew his eyes were probably the only ones in the room sharp enough to notice it, outside I-Five’s photoreceptors. He had seen the Falleen Prince Xizor’s skin darken the same way, and he suspected it was for similar reasons. This Duare person was in all likelihood pumping out some industrial-strength pheromones in an attempt to chemically sway Jax, and probably Laranth, too, to her side.
He was not sure if Twi’leks were immune to Zeltron pheromones. He recalled that the Paladin had been affected by Xizor’s mesmerizing sweat, but that meant nothing here, of course. Duare was of a different species.
He realized that Duare was speaking again, and he listened intently. “I help Ves with his work,” she was telling her audience. “You probably know that my kind are telempathic. It’s an ability that comes in handy helping Ves get in the mood to do his best work.”
I-Five must have seen Den’s blank look. “Zeltrons can project and sense emotional states,” the droid told him. “Think of it as telepathy with feelings instead of words.” He addressed this explanation to his friend via a directional sonic pulse so that no one else could overhear it. Den was grateful for the information. He hadn’t been aware of this last factoid. Makes the whole pheromone thing seem kinda superfluous, he mused.
He glanced again at Jax. The Jedi still seemed in complete control of himself, as did Laranth. Den wondered if the Force could somehow shield those who commanded it from the effect of both wafting chemicals and projected emotions. He wouldn’t be surprised. To hear Jedi such as Barriss Offee and Jax talk, the Force could do just about anything. And Den had witnessed more than enough miracles carried out by its invocation not to doubt them.
Well, let’s hope, he thought.
Jax cleared his throat. “There’s been a lot of investigation by the regime into the activities of the Whiplash lately. They’re especially interested in how renegades, radicals, and other dissenters are managing to flee offworld. Getting someone out has become even more dangerous than usual.”
Den breathed a silent sigh of relief. He was glad to hear that, pheromone mist notwithstanding, his human friend was still thinking with his brain and not his glands.
“So,” Jax continued, “we’ll have to be extra careful getting you and your companion Volette out. But one way or another, we’ll do it. I feel that we all owe it to the memory of the Caamasi.” He smiled reassuringly at Dejah Duare, and the Zeltron smiled back.
Den clapped a hand to his forehead and groaned.
I-Five glanced at him. “Something wrong?” the droid asked.
“Headache,” Den muttered. He left the room.
Se’lahn.
That was the word for it in the Sullust tongue. It meant disquietude, a sensation of unrest, a troubled heart. It was a word that described, with fair accuracy, Den Dhur’s mental state these days.
It was a state well justified, he felt. After all, he had lobbied for some time without success for all of them, even the Elomin, to hit the outer plenum and get off Coruscant immediately, if not sooner. Where they went wasn’t as important as when. The whole idea was to put as much empty space as they could between them and Lord Vader, since it was entirely possible that the Emperor’s sinister adjutant was still interested in the whereabouts of Jax Pavan.
Den understood idealism and had even been known to get a little choked up himself on occasion. He had no difficulty with Jax devoting himself to Truth, Justice, and the Jedi Code. He did, however, have a big problem with doing so under the very nose of one of the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy.
And yet something was keeping Den on Coruscant.
I-Five.
The protocol droid had accomplished a remarkable thing, Den reflected. The modified mechanical had become such a close friend that Den really couldn’t imagine life without him.
I-Five had told Den that if Den felt he had to leave Coruscant, the droid would go with him even if Jax elected to stay. But I-Five had also promised the elder Pavan that he would watch over his son if Lorn died. The droid had taken this commitment very seriously, even though he had not been able to fulfill his former partner’s request until Jax had become a grown man. Still, better late than never, and the droid’s devotion to the task was intense, as if he intended to make up for those lost decades.
So if put to the test, would I-Five stay with Jax or go with Den?
The Sullustan wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. And that was the crux of it. He, Den Dhur, crack reporter and professional cynic, had become as fond of I-Five as he might be of a sibling. Though they engaged in constant and sometimes acrimonious verbal sparring, Den had forged a bond with the droid that was stronger than any he had formed with any organic sentient.
Strong enough to keep him on a world he hated—or, rather, in the part of that world he hated. The Coruscant underworld: the slums comprising the lower fifty or so levels, the narrow, twisted surface streets and ramps, and the caverns and warrens that honeycombed the subsurface in so many places. The proliferation of buildings over the centuries had reached such a congested state that the sun could hardly ever be seen. And when it was visible, its light was strained through a veil of low-lying hydrocarbon smog that turned it blood red; an overly blatant metaphor, in Den’s opinion, but nonetheless effective.
It might seem strange to someone with only a passing familiarity with Sullustans that Den should loathe the various underground neighborhoods so. After all, weren’t his kind cave dwellers? Hadn’t they adapted over the millennia to a life underground? So what was the problem?
In a word: squalor.
Coruscant—or Imperial Center, to use the approved nomenclature, not that he had ever heard anyone other than stormtroopers, mediacasters, and governmental shills do so—for the most part did a good job of hiding its seamy underside. Tourists, visiting dignitaries, merchants, and other intermittent travelers had little opportunity, and even less inclination, to peer too long and deep into the dark abysses that occupied the spaces between the cloudcutters and sky-towers. Visitors usually came to the planet to catch glimpses of holoproj glitterati, to spend more on one meal than the average Ugnaught laborer made in a standard year, to gamble away piles of credits the size of monads without a second thought. They certainly did not come to be reminded of the filth and desperation of the conveniently concealed teeming masses who dwelled beneath the inversion layers that made many of the elegant taller structures look like they were floating on clouds. They most emphatically did not want to know that immigrants in search of the shiny dream life that escaped them on their home-worlds had been coming to Coruscant in droves since before the Clone Wars. Even though one of the first fiats issued by Palpatine had severely curtailed the flow, the ecumenopolis still processed more visas in an hour than most worlds beyond the Core systems did in a month.
All those questing, hopeful, desperate, frantic beings had to live somewhere.
Den was not speciesist. He had lived among too many different kinds of sentients to put any particular one above or below another. All he asked was to be left alone to go about his business. But it was hard, sometimes, not to feel alienated from the thousands of beings who endlessly roamed the congested streets. Alienated, and somewhat superior, given the lack of personal hygiene that frequently seemed to characterize them.
Cave dwellers his kind might be, but it was absurd to compare the noctilucent beauty of an underground city like Pirin to these fetid warrens overrun with the dregs of every conceivable outworld society. The worst examples of Kubaz, Rodians, Ugnaughts, and myriad other species crowded the streets, the open-air markets and bazaars, the seedy entertainment districts, day and night, leaving, it often seemed, hardly room enough to breathe. It was a sad thing indeed when a Sullustan found himself claustrophobic.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, there were the humans.
Everywhere you looked, humans walked the narrow, twisting avenues or piloted ground and hovercraft as if they had the whole planet to themselves.
Which they just might, and soon, if the worrying rumor that the reporter had recently heard carried the slightest bit of truth.
It had come from a fairly reliable and reputable source, at least for this kind of thing: Rhinann. The dour Elomin had told Den that a plan would soon be under way, if it had not already been implemented, to round up and quarantine as many nonhumans as possible, segregating them from the human population. Den had found this hard to believe. Even though humans by far outnumbered all other individual species on Coruscant, they were hardly dominant in the aggregate. From Anzati to Zeolosian, humanoid and nonhumanoid aliens made up the vast majority of the city-planet’s population. Trying to segregate them all from humans seemed to Den to be just asking for an uprising that would make the final struggles between the Republic and the Separatists look tame.
And if that wasn’t cause for se’lahn, he didn’t know what was.
seven
Jax could sense the subtle but insistent tug of Dejah Duare’s pheromones, the chemical call to come to her aid, the plea to do whatever was needed to help her and her comrade leave the city-planet. Before the urge could become strong enough to sway him he invoked the Force, warming the air molecules around him ever so slightly to create an adiabatic shield that deflected the biochemical entreaty.
It worked, of course. He could feel his full objectivity returning. He did not have to glance in Laranth’s direction to know that she had resorted to the same tactic. He noticed that Dejah seemed slightly discomfited, as if she were aware that her aphrodisiacal scent was not having the desired effect. Jax thought none the less of her for trying it. It was natural for her to use everything in her physical and biochemical arsenal to persuade them to the greatest extent possible. Even though he had already agreed to help, she was just trying to finalize the deal.
After the near-disastrous episode with Prince Xizor, he had made a point of learning which sentients in the galaxy utilized pheromones to influence emotions and behavior. It had allowed him to anticipate the Zeltron’s effort. Forewarned was definitely forearmed in a situation like this. By the same token, he was not sure if her telempathic abilities were strong enough to project emotions into others’ minds without their consent. But if such were the case, the Force would warn him of any attempts by Dejah to influence him that way as well.
“Well, then,” he ventured, politely pretending not to notice her uncertainty, “let’s get started.” He turned to the Elomin, who huddled in a seat in a dark corner of the room. “Rhinann, you know who to contact at the ports. Start the process while I-Five and I go with Dejah to talk to her Caamasi friend. Laranth, you and Den—” He paused, looking around. “Hey, where is Den?”
“Here,” came the Sullustan’s voice as he stepped back into the room from the hallway. “Just needed some air.”
There was something in his tone that didn’t sound quite right to Jax. True, Den wasn’t always the most enthusiastic of participants in their various undertakings, but if he had doubts about the advisability of taking on a client or a case he also wasn’t reticent about letting his comrades know where he stood. Probing in the Sullustan’s direction, Jax sensed dissatisfaction and annoyance. He couldn’t tell what the source of the troubled emotions was, however, and didn’t have time to probe deeper.
Well, he told himself, if he’s got a real problem, he’ll mention it sooner or later.
“You and Laranth hit the streets,” he told Den. “You know what to look for.”
“Right.” Den sighed. Again he sounded uncharacteristically glum. Typically, Laranth said nothing, just nodded once and headed for the exit. Den trailed in her wake.
Jax glanced at I-Five as he and the droid accompanied Dejah out to her skimmer. Hard to tell what the droid might be thinking about Den’s moodiness. Although I-Five was extremely good at simulating emotions and thoughts by subtly manipulating the angle and intensity of his photoreceptors, as well as uncannily mimicking human body language, his ability to project nuance and subtext could extend only so far.
According to the Jedi’s chrono, it was just after sunset. For the most part the surface streets were already dark. Although the street sconces were designed to work for centuries, many had been in place for millennia and had either burned out, been broken, or been stolen. Most of what illumination there was came from glow rods carried by pedestrians or from fires in refuse barrels.
So much for the spread of advanced technology, he thought.
While the streets were dark, they certainly weren’t quiet. The constant babble of thousands of beings speaking hundreds of languages, patois, pidgin, and favored dialects blended together to create a rich basilect brew. Cheunh, Durese, Bocce, Hapan, and multiphonic other voices not only made it impossible for Jax to hear himself think, it sometimes made it impossible even to be certain in which tongue he was trying to think.
Dejah Duare’s skimmer had been parked three meters above the street, where it hovered, waiting for the return of its owner. Employing a secure remote, she brought it down within reach. The vehicle was an F-57 Nucleon, with inertial stabilizers and a Class Three repulsorlift drive. Its design was charmingly retro, with sweeping tail fins, a forward cab, and a one-piece windscreen. It was a deep maroon in color, accented with sweeping lines of chrome. Dejah looked like she had been born to fly it. Jax was properly impressed. It wasn’t often one encountered a vehicle that had been tinted to match its owner.
Her nav comp found an insertion point in one of the traffic streams, and she took the vehicle up at the steepest angle allowed. They reentered the flow at Level 75, just below the cloud layer. Fifteen minutes later the skimmer was nestling neatly into a parking pod near the upper floors of an expensive resiplex.
“Does he know we’re coming?” I-Five’s sensors were alert as they entered the building. The gleaming metallic walls of the lobby were lit with subtle chromatics, providing an ambience of understated elegance. Jax was abruptly very much aware of the shabbiness of his apparel. The boots, trousers, bloused shirt, and sleeveless fleekskin vest, which had been exactly right to blend in with the riffraff downlevel, here looked distinctly out of place. He shrugged. So much for keeping a low profile.
He felt nervous, on edge. The Force was trying to tell him that something wasn’t right. Something bad had happened in this building, not long ago. But just as the Force could be incredibly explicit with the visions and portents it sometimes granted, so, too, could it be maddeningly vague and inchoate, and this was one of the latter times.
“No,” Dejah said, answering the droid’s question. “I tried to comm him but there was no answer.”
Jax looked at her. “You don’t sound very worried about your partner.”
She smiled thinly back at him as they walked. “That’s because Ves is frequently incommunicado. When he doesn’t reply I assume he’s working. He always works obsessively when he’s upset. It’s his way of dealing with it. And,” she finished, “sometimes the result is his best art.”
They traversed a length of corridor, at the end of which was a portal to a resicube. As she put her palm on the identifier plate, Dejah continued, “He’ll be in his studio. It’s in the rear of the—”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, as the door slid open and she looked inside, she screamed.
The cube’s interior was cream, pearl, and ivory, the furniture and finishings all in shades of white. Which made the bloodstains on the carpet next to Ves Volette’s body stand out in stark and brilliant scarlet.
Prefect Pol Haus of the sector police was a Zabrak: a short and somewhat stocky humanoid whose stubby horns rose from his skull in an untidy arrangement with no discernible growth pattern. This undisciplined look was not confined to his head. Haus was a disreputable-looking specimen from head to toe. His rank was high enough that he no longer needed to wear a uniform, and his attire looked like it had been custom-tailored by a palsy-stricken Dug. Over his clothes he wore a duster afflicted with a profusion of pockets. These seemed able to produce just about anything necessary for investigating a crime scene. He sported no ritual tattoos—another rarity for a Zabrak—and his skin was an unhealthy hue that bespoke a persistent lack of exposure to natural light.
Watching the prefect as he went about his business, Jax didn’t buy into the veneer of disorganization. One did not get to be an official in the planetary police by being lazy, slovenly, or both. The fact that Haus paid so little attention to his appearance suggested that he didn’t have to. That was significant. The fact that Sector Command had sent somebody of his rank to investigate wasn’t a good sign, either. Prefects didn’t leave the station to personally check out routine homicides. Such unpleasantness was normally left to underlings.
Jax and his companions were in the hall outside the cube. The murder scene itself was swarming with forensics droids large and small, which were recording and cataloging everything in sight. Jax had some knowledge of the procedure. Everything that a killer might have come into contact with would be scanned and recorded down to the molecular level. Any conceivable trace evidence would be picked up, ranging from the obvious, fingerprints, hair, skin cells, and the like, to the not-so-obvious such as thermal traces and any remnants of exhaled gases. You could tell a lot about a being if you knew the percentage of carbon dioxide he breathed out. It was a very careful killer who did not leave behind some trace of him-, or her-, or itself behind.
Jax watched the forensics droids going about their business, admiring their efficiency. The smaller units hovered on repulsorlifts a few centimeters above the carpet, so as to avoid trampling its fibers with their shuffling gaits. He was impressed with their speed and thoroughness—impressed, and more than a bit apprehensive. They were the epitome of professionalism, and the last thing he wanted was to have that vaunted clarity, that merciless illuminating glare, turned upon himself and his cohorts.
Having concluded his cursory inspection of the room, the police prefect emerged to study those waiting outside. Jax could feel the official’s disapproval. The biolight source in the hallway’s ceiling was on the verge of final decay, and the illumination had grown unreasonably bright, like that of a star just before its death throes. The unit cast hard-edged shadows instead of bathing everything within its purview in a normal soft, diffuse glow. It gave the scene a stark, alien quality. Beneath it, even the beauteous if distraught Dejah looked cold.
Haus coughed softly. “Did any of you touch anything, other than the doorplate?”
Jax answered for the three of them. “No.”
The prefect looked skeptical. “Not even the corpse? To see if he was still alive?” He looked at Dejah, who was sitting in a small hoverchair with a blanket draped over her shoulders. “You. He was your partner, and you didn’t bother to check his vitals?”
Jax felt a small stab of irritation. While it was the prefect’s job to ask questions, this one had been answered already. He was tempted to wonder aloud which part of no the Zabrak didn’t understand, but he held his irritation in check. It was seldom a good idea to give in to easy emotion. Especially when being questioned in a homicide. Keeping his tone carefully neutral, he responded for Dejah.
“There was no need, Prefect. It was apparent he was dead.”
Haus wore studied indifference like a mask. “You could tell that from across the room?”
“I could tell,” Dejah mumbled lifelessly. “He had the death reek on him.”
Not even the prefect saw fit to question this. A Zeltron could easily detect the scent of epinephrine and fear pheromones in the room, as well as the lack of empathic vibes from her erstwhile comrade. And the Force had made it unequivocally clear to Jax the moment the door had opened that the sculptor Volette was dead, but it wouldn’t be even a remotely good idea to let Haus know that.
I-Five said, “Judging from the size of the bloodstain on the carpet, Prefect Haus, the proportions of the body, and the depth of the stab wound that killed him, the probability of him being anything other than dead was close to zero.”
Haus regarded I-Five. “So now a protocol droid is offering me advice on what questions to ask? Had a lot of experience with murder victims, have you?”
I-Five was less than intimidated. “During the Clone Wars I was posted at a medical Rimsoo in a planetary war zone. I regret to say that my experience with organic exsanguination is rather more extensive than I would wish.
“Given the extent of the bloodstain and the thickness and easily discernible absorptive capacity of the carpet, a simple mathematical computation can determine the quantity of liquid necessary to provide such dispersal. The average humanoid adult has a blood volume of approximately four-point-nine liters, of which two-point-seven liters is plasma. Humanoid survival with an untreated Class Four blood loss—that is, greater than forty percent of total volume—is unlikely for more than a few minutes. The amount of blood soaked into this carpet is, I estimate, nearly three liters. Even if the deceased had recently spent some months at an altitude sufficient to have radically thickened his blood, his red cell count could not be sufficient to allow survival with such a volumetric loss. Quite easy to see from across the room.” I-Five’s tone was dry and matter-of-fact, but Jax caught the underlying sarcasm. He resisted the urge to smile.
The prefect looked at the droid, then at Jax. “You program this smart-mouth machine?”
Jax shook his head. “He came that way.”
Haus made a rude, decidedly unprofessional sound. “Might want to have his head popped and a more polite template installed. Not all police are as easygoing as me.” He turned back to the inconsolable Dejah. “So let me see if I have this right. The deceased was the Caamasi light sculptor Ves Volette, your partner. You were worried about his safety, and your own, and thus engaged this guy”—he nodded at Jax—“for protection.”
This guy came out sounding quite a bit like this amateur to Jax. He silently counted to ten, first in Basic and again in Ugnaught pidgin. It was amazing the places and times where Jedi training could be put to use.
It was not really a question, but Dejah nodded assent. Before the cools had arrived, Jax had warned her about mentioning anything to do with fleeing the planet.
The prefect turned to Jax. “And it’s your business to routinely provide this kind of security service?”
The hard-edged light illuminating the hall flickered; a quick, ghostly strobe, before shining even brighter than before. The scene became sharper, almost crystalline. The unit was definitely on the verge of critical failure, Jax decided.
“That’s right,” he said to Haus. “We—I’m licensed to do so. It’s a new classification: Confidential Fact-finder. Nonprofit.”
“So the records seem to say. I have your time of arrival, and my docbot says the victim has been dead for two hours and fifteen minutes, give or take a few. I’ll need statements from you as to where each of you was at that time.”
Jax nodded, glad of the opportunity to agree. “Of course.”
The Zabrak looked at Dejah again. “If you were worried that somebody might make an attempt to kill you or your partner, why didn’t you call the proper authorities?”
She turned slightly and looked at the officer. The angle put half her face in deep shadow. “Ves’s homeworld was recently destroyed by what rumor suggests was an action by the proper authorities. With all due respect to you personally, Prefect, my companion had reason not to trust anybody who represents the Empire in any form. Nor do I.”
Haus turned contemplative. “I’ve heard about what happened to Caamas, of course. Everyone has. But it was a military action.” His tone sharpened. “The Imperial Sector Police is not political.”
“Really?” Her words emerged steeped in bitterness. “Somebody should tell that to the Vesarian students at Imperial City University.”
The prefect had the good grace to look embarrassed. “That incident was an aberration. As within any large organization there are, unfortunately, rogue elements. The centurion in charge of the unit in question was arrested and is awaiting trial.”
“I’m sure that makes the parents of the dead students feel much better.”
Haus made a dismissive gesture. “An officer will take your statements and will provide you two with locator rings.” He gestured at I-Five. “And a locator plug will be flashed to your smart-mouth droid. Stay dirtside—we’ll call you when we need to speak again.”
He turned away, dismissing them as thoroughly as he would have any inorganic piece of evidence. Which was fine with Jax—he was perfectly content to be treated as part of the scenery.
A police droid rolled up. “This way, citizens.”
Jax sighed. Hardly a great way to start one’s day: hired to save a pair of clients, only to have one die before they even got to him. Now they were, at best, witnesses to the scene, at worst possible suspects. Affixed with police locator rings that could not be easily removed, they weren’t likely to be leaving the planet anytime soon. Jax didn’t much like the idea of the cools turning over the rocks under which he and his cohorts liked to operate, but that was going to happen now whether he wanted it to or not.
The best option for him and his friends was to figure out who killed the sculptor and present Haus with that information before the police came across something embarrassing or illegal, and there was plenty of both for them to find. Jax knew that a truth-scan required more than just suspicion of irregularity, which was why Haus hadn’t ordered one on the spot. Also, the cools were not supposed to ask questions during a scan that touched on activities outside the direct scope of the crime under investigation. But such rules were seldom strictly enforced, particularly downlevel, and it wouldn’t be the first time the authorities dug a bit deeper than allowed just to see what was there. A truth-scan would prove that neither he nor Dejah had killed the sculptor, but there were plenty of other things Jax did not want brought to light.
The Force could keep such things hidden, but if they pushed a scan too hard, he might suffer memory damage, or worse. A Jedi Master could resist a truth-scan in his sleep, but Jax knew his abilities did not begin to approach such a degree of control.
In short, the sooner the cools wrapped this up and went on to other crimes, the better for Jax and company. If Haus and his men didn’t find the killer immediately, then Jax had better do so. Otherwise he and Laranth and the others would have the police in their hair until doomsday.
Aurra Sing exited the spaceport, having made her passage through Customs and Immigration with no trouble. The passport chip issued her by Lord Vader guaranteed her Prime Civilian Immunity status, the highest protection accorded someone who was neither in the military nor a member of royalty. She took a drop-tube down three levels to the commuter pad, where a chauffeured skylimo awaited her. As soon as she had boarded, it angled directly up into the highest traffic stratum, a rarefied lane reserved for governmental traffic only.
It had been some time since Sing had been on Coruscant—now Imperial Center—and she marveled at how quickly and thoroughly the destruction inflicted by the Separatists’ carpet bombing had been either repaired or simply hidden from view. Rebuilding was still going on apace. From her privileged position above the general traffic flow she could see, near the horizon, one of the huge construction droids. As tall as a forty-story building, it was methodically masticating its way through a swath of condemned structures. She knew that the resulting rubble would be ground up and separated into component elements, to be reassembled by billions of nanodroids deep in the giant’s metal-and-composite guts. The result would be excreted as pliable new material to be reshaped into whatever forms the architects and city planners decreed.
It was an impressive example of the power and achievements of the Empire. She did not spend too much time contemplating such things, however. Her focus was on learning one thing: whom she would have to hunt.
After all, one did not secure the release from prison of one of the galaxy’s most feared and formidable bounty hunters in order to have floral arrangements designed.
For almost as long as Aurra Sing could remember it had been the thrill of the hunt that had kept her alive, that had given her a reason to progress from one day to the next. It was only when she relied solely on her own skills, her superb reflexes and unique training, that she felt anything even approaching a level of personal comfort. She had relied on nothing else for so long …
One of her earliest memories, from before she had even been capable of walking, was of her spice-addicted mother carrying her down the narrow, twisted, garbage-strewn streets of Nar Shaddaa. Being held safely in her mother’s arms, she remembered it as being one of the very few times she had felt anything approaching security. The moment even approached that emotional state others called happiness.
For Aurra Sing, happiness remained as much theory and speculation as the origin of the universe.
That special, long-ago moment had seemed as if it would go on forever. Until Aunuanna, desperate for spice, had dropped her child to the slimy wet pavement as she raced to meet her dealer.
Left behind, forgotten, a lump of organic trash abandoned on the pavement, the child who would become Aurra Sing had cried alone for hours in terror and pain. Eventually, emotionally and physically exhausted, she had crept beneath some stinking rags at the side of the lane. There she had lain, whimpering. It had been nearly dawn before Aunuanna’s dust-besotted brain had cleared enough for her to remember her abandoned child, and another hour before she managed to locate her.
Sing shook her head slightly, the movement amounting to little more than a twitch of irritation. As a neglected child, she had felt terrified and alone on countless occasions. As an adult she had turned such memories into a perverse kind of gratitude. Without knowing it and certainly without intending to, the addict Aunuanna had taught her youngling the basic lesson of survival, and taught it well: Trust no one, and look to no one but yourself for survival.
Sing studied the endless streams of aerial traffic flowing below her. Vehicles crisscrossed, sank, and rose in a complex three-dimensional dance that, thanks to omnipresent navigational and speed control nodes, hardly ever resulted in a crash or spatial gridlock. It really didn’t matter who her designated target would be. A Sakiyan warrior bound on redeeming his clan’s honor, a Weequay on a blood quest, a Januul in a scalp-taking fury: nothing could be more debilitating than feeling her lungs being eaten away by zenium dust in the stone guts of a forgotten planetoid.
Nothing.
She leaned back into the soft luxury of the limo’s seat, literal as well as metaphorical parsecs away from her former quarters, and smiled to herself.
Expecting to be taken to Imperial City for her meeting with Vader, she was somewhat surprised when the skylimo suddenly dipped down and exited the VIP lane without a government building in sight. The powerful craft went into a steep descent that plunged into a narrow abyss between equatorial cloudcutters. Overhead, it was early afternoon, with the sun still halfway between zenith and horizon. Down where she was being taken, it was night.
Down here, she knew, it was always night.
The unmarked limo came to a stop, hovering half a meter above a narrow, trash-strewn street. On either side, cyclopean towers rose from massive foundations sunk deep into the planet’s crust, their flanks vanishing into the mist and gloom above. Her surroundings were eerily familiar; it was almost as if, after all these decades, she were back on Nar Shaddaa. She saw no entrances or windows and no signs of habitation. In fact, there was no indication of life at all—not even any vehicle or pedestrian traffic.
She stepped from the limo, which rose to hover perhaps a dozen meters overhead. The fire-blackened, gutted husk of a landspeeder rested where it had no doubt crashed against a huge ferrocrete block that formed part of a skytower’s foundation. Save for the almost inaudible thrum of the limo’s repulsors, the silence was complete.
No, she realized—not complete. There was another sound, a sound she had never heard before, yet one that struck her as oddly familiar. A regular, measured susurration, growing gradually louder.
Whipping her lightsaber from its hook and activating it in a single movement, she whirled. The red glow of the shaft illuminated an alcove in the base of the building closest to her, and illuminated as well the tall, black-clad figure that emerged from it.
Before she could determine whether his intentions were malign or benign, he extended one black-gloved hand toward her. Her lightsaber leapt from her grasp, its fire extinguishing as it did so. It flew across the intervening space and slapped into Vader’s hand.
He had been quick enough and powerful enough to take her primary weapon from her before she had even realized she was in danger of losing it. A striking display of mastery over the Force, Sing had to admit to herself. But surely he didn’t consider her helpless just because he had relieved her of one part of her arsenal.
As she dropped into a low fighting crouch, both hands seized the twin r’rüker’at knives secured at her waist. Her blasters would be futile, she knew; he could easily deflect the bolts with the lightsaber. Her only chance was to do the unexpected, and that meant getting in close enough for blade work. Forged by Alwari smiths in the jungles of Ansion, the knives were designed to be hidden in plain sight as part of the complex intaglio carved into her belt. Four rings allowed four fingers an unbreakable grip on each, and she had never let go before until the blades had finished their work.
Instead of following up his first move with a direct assault, however, Vader did something completely unexpected. He just stood there, ignoring her as casually as if she didn’t exist. As she stared, he inspected her lightsaber thoughtfully; then, holding it out at arm’s length, he reactivated it. The crimson spire of destructive energy pointed straight up from his gloved fist. At first, nothing seemed to be happening. Then Sing realized that the shaft was getting brighter. Its brilliance intensified until she had to raise a hand to shield her eyes from the all-but-blinding scarlet radiance. The refulgence dazzled her eyes, overwhelming everything else; the street, the buildings, the wrecked landspeeder. Only Vader remained somehow visible; standing there, holding the weapon easily, seemingly unaffected by the blade’s terrible radiance. The familiar deep hum that was the weapon’s identifying sound rose in pitch, higher and higher, until it tore at her hearing. And then, in a final burst of screaming incandescence, the lightsaber’s shaft vanished.
Sing stared in sheer disbelief. Her eyes were capable of adapting much more rapidly to changes in ambient light than were a human’s. A couple of blinks and the afterimages cleared, normal vision returning almost immediately. Vader stood motionless, the weapon’s hilt still gripped in his outstretched fist. She could see a tiny wisp of smoke curling from the emitter.
He had overloaded the lightsaber’s energy crystal through the Force. Sing prided herself on her knowledge of weaponry and their individual strengths and weaknesses. It was her profession, after all. But she had never seen or heard of such a thing before.
The Dark Lord opened his hand. Reduced to a cylinder of useless metal, composites, and components, the now harmless weapon clattered onto the pavement.
“As I told you back on Oovo Four,” he said, “I have a job for you. Take up a weapon against me again, even reflexively, and I’ll have you on the next prison barge offworld. Do I make myself clear?”
Slowly Sing returned the knives to her belt, folded her arms, and regarded him levelly. “I’m listening,” she said.
The cul-de-sac known as Poloda Place was one of the few locations downlevel that still retained a glimmer of respectability. The buildings, rococo resi-blocks for the most part, were packed close together. What narrow, winding passageways once connected the plaza with the rest of the underground had long ago been mortared up or otherwise sealed off. The only means of ingress or egress was a serpentine lane with the picturesque, not to mention evocative, name of Snowblind Mews. Den had wondered more than once how it had come to be named that, since snow had not fallen anywhere on Coruscant save in recreational areas specified by WeatherNet for many thousands of years.
Due to the combination of cheap rent, spacious living areas, and a spurious sense of safety, Poloda Place had acquired something of a reputation as an artists’ colony. It was here, over twenty years earlier, that the novelist Kai Konnik had written his award-winning tale Beach of Stars. The Fondorian composer Metrisse had crafted his famous Études of Time and Space while sojourning there, and the notoriously decadent Twi’lek Dreamdancer Nar Chan had held her infamous, weeklong bacchanals in the court.
Those were indeed the days, Den reflected, hurrying to keep up with Laranth as she crossed the flagstones and made her way through the exit.
“Slow down!” he complained. “Not every species has grotesquely long legs, y’know.”
The Twi’lek glanced back over her shoulder without slowing her pace. “Then stretch yours.”
Swearing under his breath, Den broke into a trot. “I gotta tell you,” he muttered as he caught up to her, “this whole fatal fem thing is getting old. You know you’re hard, I know you’re hard. Anyone around you for more than five minutes who doesn’t know that you’re hard isn’t operating in the same sensory framework. So as a personal favor, why don’t you lighten up?”
Laranth halted sharply and looked down at him. “What makes you think I have a choice?”
This was not the response Den had expected. Not that he’d had any particular rejoinder in mind. He came to a stop as well, thankful for the respite. Gazing up at the unsmiling Twi’lek Paladin, he observed how the various krypton, argon, and neon spectra from a nearby floating advert-sphere shone off the glossy scar tissue of her face. He noticed as well something he hadn’t seen before in her eyes. Instead of the usual bleak mixture of determination and resignation, Den was surprised to see a flash of hurt—hurt, and an infinite weariness. It vanished quickly; so quickly that anyone else might have wondered if there had really been anything there at all. But Den was, above all, a reporter, and he trusted his perception. Not every insight came through utilization of the Force. He knew he had just gotten a glimpse of some very real and very old scars.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, abashed. “Didn’t mean to—”
She interrupted him with a shrug as she turned away. “Forget it.” She was in motion again, strong legs striding. After a moment, he followed.
As he hurried to keep up with her he found himself turning over in his mind what he knew about Laranth Tarak. There wasn’t much. He knew that she had been a Gray Paladin, a member of the renegade group that had splintered from the Jedi mainstream. He didn’t know much about them, save that they were dedicated to the Jedi Code but considerably more militaristic than the Order itself. Since the Jedi Knights weren’t exactly mantra-chanting pacifists to begin with, this suggested that the Gray Paladins were capable of some serious butt kicking. Den knew this to be true from experience and not just anecdote, as he’d had the privilege of seeing Laranth in action. The Twi’lek’s weapons of choice were the twin DL-44 blasters he had rarely seen her without, and her skill and accuracy with them were uncanny. Aided by the Force, she was good enough to block enemy fire with her own blasts. It was not quite the same as parrying shots with a lightsaber, but it was still impressive.
That was pretty much all he knew about the Gray Paladins. Little as it was, it was more than he knew about Laranth herself. This despite the occasional research he had carried out employing his reportorial skills. Laranth Tarak had dropped off the grid of the knowable a long time ago. He knew that she and Jax had first encountered each other during the slaughter of innocents known as Flame Night, a nocturnal massacre of Force-sensitives designed to rid the Empire of potential future threats as well as to draw any remaining Jedi out of hiding. It had been one of the first actions taken by the newly formed Inquisitorius. By the standards of that formidable and menacing body, the operation had been a great success, winning high praise from the Emperor himself.
By combining forces, Jax and Laranth had managed to barely escape from the ambush, although Laranth had not emerged unscathed. Den didn’t know if the Paladin’s grim nature had always been a part of her personality, or if it had been annealed that night by the blasterfire that had truncated a lekku and seared one side of her face. It didn’t really matter. Whoever Laranth Tarak had been before had been thoroughly purged by the horrors of Flame Night.
Inquisitors, those “truth officers” steeped in the dark side, still prowled the multifarious sectors of Imperial Center, albeit in fewer numbers. The majority of them had been dispatched to the Outer Rim Territories and similar galactic backplanets to sniff out illegal Force activity. But the ones who remained were still to be feared. Den had heard that some were capable of isolating a lone Force-sensitive, nascent or otherwise, out of a population of millions. The chances of discovery were still astronomically slim—nevertheless, the Sullustan sweated every time Jax or Laranth made use of the Force.
Laranth had never been deliberately unkind to him. But even though she had saved his life on more than one occasion, Den still at times felt a small knot of uneasiness in his gut whenever he had to deal with her. She was so unremittingly gloomy. Not once could he recall seeing her smile.
Probably a good thing, he thought. Might crack that scar tissue wide open.
In any event, now was not the time to be wondering about Laranth’s past. Jax had given them an assignment, which was to check the availability of possible UML routes and determine the quickest and safest way to get the Caamasi and his girlfriend offworld. For unavoidable security reasons this had to be done in person and not via electronic means of communication that could be intercepted or traced.
There were a number of Whiplash outpost agents in this sector. Each of these operatives was assigned to a certain section of a route. None knew any of the others. All operated on a strict need-to-know basis, and the order in which they were approached was chosen at random.
“So who’s up in rotation this time?” he asked Laranth.
She hesitated a moment, then said, “The Cephalon.”
Den smacked a hand to his forehead. “Sweet Sookie’s maiden aunt,” he groaned. “Do we have to deal with that thing again? He—it—they—I don’t even know what pronoun to use, but it gives me the creeps.”
“I sympathize,” Laranth replied, “but that’s who we’re seeing. Come on—let’s get it over with.” She increased her pace, striding swiftly down the litter-strewn street that was becoming more crowded as the day progressed.
Den groaned again and hurried after. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to say that I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Consider it indigestion,” she replied curtly, “and deal with it.”
eight
There were in the galaxy two main types of intelligence: chordate and ganglionic. Evolution, by panspermic and convergent means, had mandated that the vast majority of sentient beings be of the former design: creatures with a rod of cartilage or bone running the length of their bodies from which a skeleton could be hung and atop which a lump of cortical tissue could, in some cases, eventually grow into a self-aware brain. There were exceptions, of course. The Hutts, for example, were essentially giant invertebrate mollusks, their decentralized brains composed of billions of concatenated subneural chains integrated into their flesh. For the most part, however, intelligence had evolved through building notochords and parking gray matter atop them. This generally resulted in one consciousness per body, which seemed to Den a sensible way to arrange things.
Ganglionic intelligence was quite different. Most thought the term referred to a collective sentience, or hive-mind: the sum of many individual brains working in concert toward a common end, such as the bafforr trees of Iffor or the bivalves of Mon Calamari’s Knowledge Bank. Den had thought so as well, until I-Five had set him straight:
“What you’re thinking of is symbiotic intelligence. Aggregated consciousness. Ganglionic intelligence is another thing entirely. Almost the opposite, in fact. It’s compartmentalized consciousness. Try to envision your arms and legs having minds of their own, as the saying goes.”
Den tried to imagine such a thing, and failed utterly. “It makes no sense,” he argued. “Actually, it’s even worse than that. It makes anti-sense.”
I-Five sighed. He was capable of giving the sound a remarkably human resonance, given that he didn’t breathe and had to synthesize it mechanically. “Take my word for it, then.”
“I guess I’ll have to. So you’re saying that this—this—what do they call themselves again?”
“They don’t. Humans and other species usually refer to them as Cephalons, which just means ‘head’ in Oldspeak Basic. They see no need for names, as their consciousness apparently exists in and perceives four dimensions.”
“That sounds like a cosmic non sequitur to me,” Den said. “But setting that aside …”
The droid anticipated his next question. “They ‘see’ time the way we see space.”
“Uhh …”
I-Five projected the near-infinite patience of a parent trying to explain a difficult concept to a child. “The theory is that they’re not limited to a linear one-way perception of time as most sentients are. They perceive temporal events the same way you’re cognizant of items in spatial relation to where you are. See that landspeeder parked behind you?”
Den looked behind him. “Yes.”
“Call it the past.”
The Sullustan frowned. “Why?”
“Because it’s behind you. See that trash bin ahead of you? That’s the future.”
“For you, maybe. I try to be more optimistic.”
“How fortunate for me my chassis is made of sealed metal. Otherwise I might split my sides from laughter.” I-Five took Den by the shoulders and turned him around. “Work with me on this.” He pointed at the landspeeder. “Now that’s the future, and the trash bin is the past. See? They conceptualize space and time as a four-dimensional hypermanifold. Simple, really.”
“Why do you hate me?”
The Sullustan had tried to wrap his head around it, he really had, but it was just too bizarre. The Cephalon was easily the most alien of alien beings he had ever encountered, and for someone who had spent as much time as he had in a front-line Rimsoo, seeing in a week more xenomorphs, both inside and out, than most people did in a year, that was saying something.
But there did seem to be one small plot of common ground, and that was the Cephalon’s willingness to aid other beings in escaping repression. Which meant that, every now and then, it had to be dealt with.
But that didn’t mean Den had to like it.
Such a pathetic state of affairs, Haninum Tyk Rhinann told himself. How sad that he had come to this lowly state. It was undignified enough to be dependent on a human benefactor such as Jax Pavan, but it was much, much worse to actually be envious of him. His bauth—an Elomin concept largely untranslatable in Basic, indicating a combination of unshakable poise, brazen effrontery, and a touch of aloof amusement—which had once encased his soul in impenetrable armor, now hung in tatters. He had no individual future, no course, no star by which to steer. He had been cast down.
No, it was worse than that: he had cast himself down.
It hadn’t always been thus. Once, not long ago, Rhinann had been puissant indeed. His word had been powerful enough to open doors and to close them as well, locking away behind them the enemies of his master. Perhaps it was true enough what his critics had said: that he had held no real power of his own, but instead had been merely a pale reflection of his master’s glory, like a planet throwing back the light of its star. Perhaps. But there were worlds that reflected the dim ruddiness of red dwarves, and there were worlds that reflected the blinding azure of giant blue-white stellar furnaces. And save for Palpatine himself, no star burned more brightly in the firmament of the Empire than that of Lord Darth Vader.
It had been a heady draft of power, at first. Rhinann had been Vader’s aide-de-camp, his personal adjutant and factotum, and as such the flail the Elomin had swung had been heavy. Given such a position one could ask, with perfect justification, why he had sought exile voluntarily.
On the surface of it he had had a most excellent motivation: survival. His master had at last run the rogue Jedi Pavan to ground, it was true. Unfortunately, that location had also been ground zero for an imminent overload, initiated by Pavan in an underground reactor in the Factory Works, that grim antipodean no-being’s-land populated solely by feral droids. The Imperial Lambda-class shuttle’s stabilizer vanes had been disabled by Pavan’s lightwhip, whereupon the Elomin had acted out of sheer instinct for perhaps the only time in his otherwise wholly rational life: he had abandoned the un-airworthy ship and, in so doing, abandoned his lord and master as well. As a consequence, he had been left with little choice but to throw in his lot with Pavan and his group of motley companions.
Such disloyalty to the Empire could not be forgiven, even if his only alternative had been being reduced to a wisp of radioactive gas drifting forlornly across the devastated landscape.
His plight might not have been so bad, his eventual fate not as certain, had Vader been transformed into free-floating ions like the rest of the Lambda’s crew. But Rhinann had seen the telltale footage captured by the Far Ranger’s rear cameras, the instant in which a life pod had jettisoned from the shuttle at maximum speed. He hadn’t needed the calculations quickly performed by I-Five, which had given the occupant of that life pod a one-in-eight chance of escaping the immediate area and finding adequate shelter among the deserted protective husks of buildings farther from the blast site. The odds, the droid had hypothesized, would be improved to an unknown degree should the pod’s passenger happen to be a master of the Force.
Rhinann had believed then what he knew now to be true—that this was precisely what had happened. After all, this was Darth Vader. The monster was all but indestructible. Of that Rhinann was convinced, and knew he was far from alone in his judgment. Because, in addition to his augmented strength and reflexes, Vader seemed to be more powerful than anyone in that most mysterious and wonderful of intangibles: the Force.
The Force captivated Rhinann. He had devoured every scrap of information on it he could find—no easy feat, given Emperor Palpatine’s galactic ban on any and all hard data concerning the Force. After years of cautious study, the fascinated Elomin still had little idea of what it truly was. Most savants dismissed it out of hand, calling it a legend, a myth, a throwback to the sort of primitive religions that thankfully had all but died out in this modern, more enlightened era. Of course, none of them had felt an invisible noose tighten around their necks in concert with Vader’s slowly contracting fist. But Rhinann had, and he knew that, whatever else it might be, the Force was no myth.
According to the lore, both ancient and modern, that he had assimilated, the Force was a form of energy that could be controlled and manipulated by conscious will. There were two theories as to how this was possible, which Rhinann felt were not necessarily mutually exclusive. One was that the ability to access the Force was based on a kind of apperception precipitated and augmented by endosymbiotic cellular organelles called midi-chlorians. The other theory held that the Force itself somehow brought into being those same midi-chlorians in order to facilitate its connection and thus manifest itself to varying degrees of potency in various species and individuals. There was also evidence that it was hereditary, although a wide gene pool seemed to be required for it to flourish. Nick Rostu, a native of Haruun Kal, was supposedly descended, along with all the other Korunnai, from a seed population of Jedi shipwrecked there centuries ago. Yet that soldier’s connection with the Force had been weak. It would seem that midi-chlorians, and their resulting Force manifestation, did not increase their potency through inbreeding.
With great caution and stealth Rhinann had recently arranged to have his own midi-chlorian count tested. The results, carefully shunted and sliced through a plethora of servers and screens around the galactic information hyperlane, had at last come into his possession. As he had suspected, the number was pitifully low: a mere two thousand per cell on average. No one with such a low reading would ever feel the Force flowing through them. Although this merely confirmed his suspicions, he still found it disappointing.
Rhinann sighed, his nose tusks vibrating in high C. He’d reluctantly come to the conclusion that he had spent enough time on this quixotic quest for his own mastery of the Force. Better to concentrate on the far more mundane but realizable task at hand. He was supposed to be searching for lightsaber components. Trying to be something he was not was utter foolishness, and unworthy of whatever meager pride he had left.
He gestured at the holoproj, intending to change sources, when he noticed a blinking node signifying a datum of possible interest that fell within his search parameters. It was dated nearly twenty standard years ago, and appeared to be a transmission from one of the outlying planetary fronts during the waning years of the Clone Wars. An odd sort of communication to stumble across.
Intrigued, he investigated further. Careful probing revealed what likely had been an obvious attempt to scour the item from the data banks, because it existed now only as an endstate echo, a digital reverberation of the original. Twenty years of quantum flux had resulted in considerable degradation. But Rhinann was an excellent slicer. With patience and skill he extracted what data he could from the various shells.
Interesting …
What he had found appeared to be a report from the world of Drongar, composed by the Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee to her Master Luminara Unduli concerning a native adaptogenic plant called bota. The Jedi Offee had apparently—whether by accident or design was not clear—taken an injection of the plant’s distillate. The result apparently was a considerable increase in the Force’s potency within her. Offee went on to say that she was sending a vial of bota serum to the Temple for further research. How this was to be accomplished was too corrupted for Rhinann to decipher. Her report went on to note that the plant’s effects were opportunistic and varied widely from species to species. Given the potential ramifications of her discovery she strongly recommended that …
Rhinann’s frustration knew no bounds: despite his best efforts, the rest of the message proved unreadable.
He felt his ear hairs quivering with excitement. While by no means certain, could this forgotten discovery by a now deceased Jedi be the “magic slug” that might enable him to experience the Force?
He had, of course, heard of Bariss Offee and Drongar. Den Dhur and I-Five had spoken often of their sojourn on that pestiferous jungle world, as well as of their comrades in arms there. He could not recall hearing them mention anything about plant derivatives, much less bota distillate, but surely there should be a way to find out more about it.
He would have to be circumspect in his seeking, he knew. He had observed that Jedi were protective of their connection to the Force. If Offee’s finding was authentic, and if Pavan and Tarak were at all familiar with it, they would no doubt be reluctant to share such information, especially with someone not of their clique. Haninum Tyk Rhinann was not a foolish or reckless being. Proof of this lay in his continued survival despite the often threatening circumstances in which he found himself. He would proceed cautiously.
And if it was true—if this reputed botanical enhancement could still be found, and if it could somehow facilitate a connection between him and the Force—well then, those who had taken advantage of his new miserable station in life would have ample cause to regret it.
nine
Night had overtaken much of Imperial Center by the time Typho came to the reluctant conclusion that his search through the ruins of the Jedi Temple had been futile. The vast repositories of the library had been stripped of most archival material, electronic as well as physical. No matter how skillful and experienced a slicer he was, what remained was still far too much for one being to sift through. The library wing had once been the repository for a thousand worlds’ histories, cultures, bestiaries, and countless other data. What was left had been thoroughly disrupted by wave after wave of barbaric vandalism and looting. Entire files, together with their multiple backups, had been defaced or deleted, seemingly for the sheer pleasure of the destruction. He realized he would find nothing here to aid him in his quest.
He was standing in what had once been a long curving corridor lined with different forms of information storage: datasticks, memory chips, holoproj activators, and even a few ancient records created by layering dark images on dried plant pulp. He was holding a datastick in his hand. Its contents had been scrambled so that anyone attempting to read the contents would find themselves presented with gibberish.
Angry, he hurled it to the tessellated floor. It shattered with a flash of light as the residual electron storage lattice disintegrated, sounding in the stillness like a glass globe being crunched underfoot.
Pointless. Hopeless. He could easily spend a year or more searching the remnants of this one ruined library. It would take him the rest of his life to investigate the cubic kilometer of buildings, streets, stores, and various other institutions that surrounded him and had been associated with the Order. Was it really worth it?
Unbidden, the image of Padmé’s face rose before him. Soft, sensual, intelligent, and caring.
Yes, he told himself. Yes, it was worth it. He was prepared to sacrifice his life. He could certainly sacrifice his time.
He knew what his next step had to be, the next question that had to be answered. Had Anakin Skywalker, who had been the last person to see Padmé alive and thus topped his suspect list, really died on Mustafar? Or had he somehow escaped?
He was uncertain where to go to find the answer. But it was clear now that it was unlikely to be here. He turned to go—and froze as his ears registered a sound.
The interminable cityscape was rarely silent, even in these huge and deserted ruins. There was the Dopplering buzz of the traffic, both above and below, the distant whine of repulsors lifting larger vessels into orbit from the nearby spaceport, and the thousands of small seismic creaks and groans of contraction and settling as the huge structures all about him reluctantly gave up the day’s heat. These were noises so omnipresent that they had long ago faded into the background. They were the soundscape of the city-planet.
But this was different. It was the stealthy crunch of footsteps upon the debris that coated the floor. A sound that instantly alerted the soldier within Typho. Before he knew it his blaster was in his hand and he was pressing his back against the end of a storage bin.
He didn’t have to wait long. From around one of the huge shattered columns appeared a female humanoid of most striking appearance. Her skin was as white as alabaster. It gleamed coldly in the starlight that poured down through the shattered ceiling. She was bald save for a hank of dark red hair that rose from the top of her head like a magmatic eruption. The tight-fitting jumpsuit she wore was tinted a similar shade. He was able to make out the stub of some kind of biocomputer device protruding from her skull as well.
Even in the dim light Typho could see that she was heavily armed. A long-bore slugthrower was sheathed across her back, and twin holstered blasters rode low on her hips. But it was the weapon she held in her right hand that he found most intriguing. Unless he was greatly mistaken, it was the dormant hilt of a lightsaber.
It took a moment longer for him to realize who she was. He blinked in silent surprise. He had pegged her occupation almost immediately; few save bounty hunters went about in public so well protected. Some had acquired reputations that extended beyond their immediate and specialized field of work, and were recognizable on multiple worlds. Certainly none was better known than the woman he was now staring at: the mysterious Nar Shaddaan called Aurra Sing.
As a military professional it was part of Typho’s job to familiarize himself with the most dangerous outlaws and renegades, on the off-chance that he might one day be required to confront such reprobates. None qualified more than Sing. Born into unknown circumstances in the benighted urban jungles of the Smugglers’ Moon and eventually raised by Jedi who had sought to develop her nascent Force potential as an instrument of good, she had been kidnapped by pirates who had turned her against her benefactors. Aurra Sing was notorious the length and breadth of the Empire. He had heard that she had the death mark on her in more than a dozen systems. It was also rumored that she had been working for Count Dooku during the Clone Wars but had disappeared shortly after his death.
And now here she was, rooting around in the ruins of the Jedi Temple even as he was, looking for—what?
He decided that unless there was evidence to the contrary, the notorious Aurra Sing’s preoccupations were none of his business. He was not on Imperial Center in any official capacity, far less that of a military officer. He had come here on a purely personal matter. To assume that the doings of the outlaw Sing had anything to do with his work was too fantastic to contemplate. Best, then, that he simply slip away, unnoticed, into the night to resume his own quest, and leave the fabled and feared bounty hunter to hers.
There was a problem with doing that, however. The floor all about him and Sing was littered with the debris and impedimenta of the library that before the Jedi Purge had been arranged in a neat and orderly fashion. It was impossible to make the slightest move without disturbing this technological regolith. Typho had no doubt that any resulting noise would immediately alert Sing to his presence. He had been exceptionally fortunate to have heard her before she had taken notice of him.
Given their mutual isolation and unpopulated nocturnal surroundings, he doubted she was likely to stop and listen to an explanation of his presence, however brief he might try to make it. Based on her reputation, she was far more likely to shoot first and ask questions later.
Typho was by no means a coward, but one did not pursue a successful military career without learning caution. It would serve no useful purpose to engage the bounty hunter in combat, and could very well prove catastrophic. Glancing warily about while keeping Sing in view, he noticed another datastick located at eye level on a shelf opposite. Careful not to make the slightest noise as he moved, he reached for it. Hefting it firmly, he prepared to toss it far across the open floor, hoping that the flash and bang it would make on impact would give him time to …
She moved almost too fast for him to see; in an instant her lightsaber was activated. Part of him noted almost academically that the ignited shaft was almost the same color as her hair and jumpsuit. He had ample opportunity to appraise its exact hue because the incandescent tip now hovered entirely too close to his throat as it backed him up against the shelves behind him.
Typho realized he had made a foolish and possibly fatal mistake. He had neglected to take into account Sing’s storied connection with the Force. Unrefined and untrained though it might be, it had obviously been strong enough to alert her to his presence.
“Who are you?” Her voice was as cold and hard as the alabaster her skin resembled. The lightsaber that threatened his throat was as steady as if held by a droid. “More importantly,” she continued, “who sent you?”
“No one sent me.” Typho did his best to stay calm. His tone was as unthreatening as possible. “I am Captain Typho of Naboo, formerly of the Senate Security Council. I am here on my own. No agency or individual has sanctioned my undertaking.”
Sing’s eyes were red with the light of the shifting, scarlet shaft, as if they could suck up its energy through the sheer force of will that was contained behind them. “Why don’t I believe you?”
Typho realized that he had only moments left in which to save himself. If the gleam that danced in the bounty hunter’s eyes wasn’t madness, it was still borderline homicidal. This was not someone who would choose to engage in extended conversation in the ruins of a dark and deserted building in the middle of the night. Rather than spend the time to establish whether or not he posed any threat, she would simply kill him and be done with it.
Unless …
He still held the damaged datastick in his gloved hand. Without thinking and trying not to give any mental foreshadowing of his intention, he closed his eyes and squeezed his hand into a fist. As the storage device shattered, it released a burst of eye-smiting light and a sound like the bass thump! of heavy artillery being fired.
His glove was sufficient to protect him from the burst of heat that resulted from the globe’s destruction. And his action had the desired effect. With a surprised cry Sing staggered back, momentarily blinded. Typho moved quickly, knowing he had only one chance. He kicked upward, the toe of his boot slamming into Sing’s wrist. The lightsaber fell from her stunned fingers, its shaft shutting down automatically. Typho caught it.
In the course of his tour of duty on Coruscant, Typho had handled lightsabers under the supervision of Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu. As a result, he was far more familiar with them and their capabilities than was the average Naboo officer. Even though all lightsabers were slightly different, the construction of each having been finalized by the Jedi who owned it, there were certain design characteristics that were of necessity common to all. Most crucially, given his present situation, the activator stud was nearly always positioned so that it would fall under the thumb of a gripping right hand.
Typho thumbed the stud and felt the vibration surge up his arm as the unit powered up. The deep hum changed pitch as he moved the blade. If Sing pulled a blaster on him, he was as good as cooked, since he didn’t have access to the Force to warn him of incoming fire.
Instead she did something entirely unexpected; reaching down to her waist, she pulled another lightsaber from her belt and activated it. A second shaft of deadly energy, this one emerald in hue, sizzled into being.
“This is wonderful!” Sing declared. Her eyes were shining, her expression alive with cruel delight—and Typho decided, more than a touch of madness. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a decent lightsaber workout.” Stepping back, she assumed a defensive stance. The glow from her weapon bathed her white skin and pitiless smile in an unholy viridian light. “You know how to activate one. I hope you can handle it well enough to put up something of a fight.”
And so saying she leapt forward, the glowing length of lethal energy upraised to strike.
Typho had no choice but to fall back, swinging wildly in the hope of warding off his attacker. A few hours of desultory practice with the weapon had in no way taught him how to handle himself against a master of the art. Lightsaber combat was quite different from traditional sword fighting in a number of ways, not the least of which was that the lightsaber’s weight was all in its hilt, yet a firm two-handed grip was still needed because of the gyroscopic precession effect that gave the weapon a sense of mass.
He managed to block Sing’s first two attacks. His success was due as much to luck and frantic energy as to any limited skill. He didn’t fool himself into believing that his temporary reprieve was likely to last much longer. His fighting ability was further lessened by a lack of depth perception caused by the past loss of one eye. Not for the first time he found himself wishing that an accident of genetic programming had not rendered him immunodeficient to transplants cloned from his own organs.
Despite all his energy and efforts, he was quickly driven back across the broken remnants of the library aisle. Another moment and he found himself with his back up against the base of a shattered column. Grinning humorlessly, Sing raised her blade.
“On behalf of Lord Vader I was hoping to find evidence here of a Jedi named Jax Pavan,” she said. “If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, you may continue to live for a few more seconds. No? Pity. Well, then—”
She was preparing to lunge, Typho knew. A surprise attack was his only chance. He hurled himself forward, under the humming shaft of her weapon but intentionally aiming his thrust high, as if still unfamiliar with the lightness of the bound arc wave. Her countering slash missed him by the thickness of a nexu’s whisker. He felt the heat as the light wave whizzed by just above his back.
Her following move was just what he expected—and had hoped for. She chose the easiest way to avoid the thrust, which was simply to duck and allow his clumsy attack to pass over her head and hair. An instant later her triumphant grin turned into a rictus of agony. Spasming once, she collapsed to the littered floor and lay there unmoving. She was either unconscious or dead; Typho couldn’t tell which, and did not particularly care. Her weapon extinguished itself as her grip went slack. He staggered back, looking at the supine form. In the dim light he could barely see the tiny wisp of smoke that curled from the blackened tip of her biocomp antenna where he had grazed it with the lightsaber. The resulting biofeedback shock had done the rest.
Peering harder, he could make out the slight puffs of fog caused by her breath meeting the cold night air. Not dead then. Only unconscious. He had no desire to still be in her vicinity when she recovered from the shock. Already her lithe body was starting to twitch with the beginnings of a return to awareness. And, he told himself, it could all be a sham. She could be playing half dead, her intent being to lure him close.
Of course, the sensible thing to do would have been to run her through while she was on the ground, but he could not bring himself to do it. His uncle Panaka, who had been Padmé’s bodyguard when she was Queen, had taught him to show mercy whenever possible. To do less, Panaka had warned, was to risk becoming a monster like the ones often faced in the line of duty.
Typho could not have that. His intent, his desire, his mission, was to avenge Padmé, but not at the expense of a blot on her memory. Criminal though she might be, slaughtering the woman now lying stunned would do his cause no honor. His probity was on shaky ground as it was. He was here in this place under false pretenses, had come with vigilante justice on his mind and dominating his thoughts. Under such circumstances, it could be argued that he had more in common with the bounty hunter than with the strict military code of Naboo. She sought money, he sought revenge. Who could say which, in the end, was the more honorable? Surely he, in his current state of mind, was not one to render such a judgment.
Her purpose in stalking the heart of the Temple had been to find a Jedi named Jax Pavan. It had not been to challenge the wandering Captain Typho. Were that the case, he was certain she would have said so. They had met by chance; now they would part in equal ignorance.
And so he left Aurra Sing lying unconscious in the rubble of the Jedi Temple, and continued onward into the night in his quest to determine if the Jedi Anakin Skywalker still lived.
ten
—Servant. Aide?
As usual, the polite brevity of the Cephalon’s question took Den by surprise. The Standardized Basic translations that appeared on the monitor screens next to the tank showed its sub-brains all quietly humming away like banks of compartmentalized computers, each busily parsing its particular outlook on reality. Somehow these various disparate takes were codified into coherent thought—or what seemed to be to the Cephalon coherent thought—and used by the central brain, the one that was capable of abstract conceptualizing. Den did not pretend to understand how it worked. He had enough problems trying to make the single brain he’d been born with operate. The thought of having to handle input from various semi-autonomous sub-brains made him dizzy.
But such concepts and imaginings were at worst merely confusing and irritating compared with the Cephalon’s appearance. It loomed hideously out of the sulfate-laden cloud in the tank, its great sessile mass distorted by the thick transparent barrier that contained its poisonous environment. It was tethered to a coral accretion in the cheap downlevel habitat that formed its home. Or its office, or embassy; Den was not sure which of those identifiers, if any, applied.
The Sullustan could barely keep from recoiling every time he saw it. The Cephalon’s skin was the mottled flat gray of long-dead flesh, its shape an undulating oblate globe, festooned apparently at random with tentacles, antennae, feelers, and chelae. It had no eyes or other sensory organs that Den could see. According to I-Five, it perceived its external environment by means of electroceptive matrices, whatever those were. Its mouth was a baleen plate that sieved extremophile microorganisms from the dense, primarily methane atmosphere that sustained it.
The Cephalon was surely one of the most bizarre species in the entire galaxy. Its inner thoughts were as unknowable as nearly everything else about it. Working with a Force-sensitive Inquisitor, Imperial scientists had managed to identify nine distinct emotional states, of which only three bore even a faint resemblance to the sentiments that most humanoids experienced. There might be more, but it was rumored that the Inquisitor himself had gone mad from trying to wrap his own mind around the varying states of the Cephalon’s four-dimensional consciousness.
There’s a comforting image with which to open a negotiation, Den thought. Aloud, he began, “We, uh, we have two sentients on the UML who, uh, need …”
—Elaboration is/was/will be unnecessary. This was another eerie thing about the Cephalon. Since it could “observe” happenings in time as clearly as Den could see objects in three dimensions, it always knew what he was about to say. The Cephalon was not omniscient—it couldn’t conceptualize every incident in the fourth dimension any more than most beings could see everything in all three spatial directions from any single vantage point. But it seemed to know enough about the immediate future to be able to make predictions with unsettling accuracy.
—Sentients are/have been/shall be non-united. Point-pattern at now contingent modalities nonviable. As yet point-pattern in noncollapsed state, it told them.
—Probability matrices undefined. I/we apperceive discontinuity. Suggest cautious/passive/observational mode.
This was one of the biggest problems in attempted communication with a nonlinear being, as far as Den was concerned. The translation did its best to keep up with the Cephalon’s erratic and seemingly irrational changes between tenses and personae, as well as struggling to fit its static perception of the time-stream into terms of past, present, and future. The result was often a translation that usually seemed right on the verge of making sense. The Sullustan sometimes felt that he actually might be able to understand it, if he only had an extra lobe or two with which to process the mishmash. Usually, however, it was as far over his head as a skyhook penthouse.
Which was the case this time. At wit’s end in time as well as space, he glanced helplessly at Laranth. “Any idea what all this probability poodoo is about?”
She shook her head. “I have the impression it’s indecisive. Basically, it’s advising us to wait and see.” She turned to exit the habitat chamber.
He gaped at her retreating back. “That’s it? We come all this way …?”
“It was three blocks, Den.”
“That’s not the point. The Cephalon’s supposed to give us tips on the best UML routes, the right officers to bribe, that sort of stuff. He—excuse me, it—is our go- to guy in the prognostication department. I could get better advice from a Mon Cal kismet biscuit.”
Laranth did not reply. Den sighed and started to follow, when from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of more words forming on the monitors. Scowling, he turned back. You’d think the thing could at least afford a vocabulator, he thought as he read the creature’s latest words.
—Vulnerability apperceived in alternate probability. Extreme discontinuity in Force convergent. Prioritize discreet vigilance anent fugitive recovery operation.
“Okay,” Den said. “That’s cryptic even for a giant floating four-dimensional sack of brains.” Glancing toward Laranth, he saw that she had read the Cephalon’s words as well. “Think you can translate the translation?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Let’s worry about one thing at a time. I have a feeling that this job isn’t going to be easy.”
Den sighed as he followed her out the door. “Are they ever?”
“Let’s review what we know,” Jax suggested.
“Easily done,” I-Five responded, “since at this point we know practically nothing.”
The droid, the Jedi, and the Zeltron were sitting in a Southern Underground saloon called the Dizzy Dewback Cantina. Actually, Jax and Dejah were sitting and I-Five was standing close to Jax, so as to better maintain the illusion of a properly servile droid. Jax knew it made no difference in terms of wear and tear on I-Five’s chassis whether he stood or sat. He could have held an erect posture until the building crumbled around him. But it was galling to the modified droid’s pride to have to subscribe to an inferior status, and the Jedi found it difficult to resist a grin.
Jax had come to this serviceable haunt more than a few times over the last several months. It was a good place to relax while plotting strategy: reasonably quiet and out of the way, plus the food was tolerable and the drinks cheap. Of course, having been raised a Jedi he had never really developed a taste for alcohol or similar ingestible stimulants, which was why he was currently nursing a cold slush of ice flavored with various exotic fruit juices mixed with supposedly healthy items such as powdered guroot and desiccated Kaminoan sponge. It wasn’t as palatable as it sounded, and it didn’t sound all that palatable to begin with.
Dejah, on the other hand, was staring moodily into the depths of a half-empty Arboite Twister. This was not the sort of liquid concoction one expected to see a refined creature such as her imbibing. Jax had once seen a couple of downed twisters almost embalm a two-meter-tall Weequay. The mere scent of the potion wafting across a room could make a Troig bang its heads together until binary unconsciousness resulted. He’d heard somewhere that Zeltrons had two livers. She’ll need them, he thought as he watched her drain the last of the high-octane blend.
He didn’t blame her, of course. From the little she had said before the discovery of her dead partner, it was apparent to anyone that Dejah had been, at the very least, deeply fond of the Caamasi. Jax didn’t get the feeling that their relationship had involved romance, but it didn’t have to for her to feel keenly the sting of his death. Zeltrons were flagrant in their passions; they seemed incapable of entering into any relationship, be it carnal or casual, with anything less than wholehearted fervor and abandon—a consequence due at least in part to their powerful empathic abilities. When tragedies happened, they felt all the searing pain that a sentient was capable of feeling.
Of course, the reverse could just as easily be true. Fiery love could transmute into icy hatred in the blink of an eye.
He abruptly realized that I-Five had just said something and was now waiting for a reply. The droid was projecting an attitude of patience mixed with slight resignation, as if he had expected having to wait for the Jedi to rouse from his quiet reverie.
“I’m sorry,” Jax murmured. “What?”
In the absence of having a throat to clear, I-Five emitted a terse electrical crackle. “To reiterate—if I may. Prefect Haus’s men have not found the murder weapon yet. I venture that its discovery may shed more light on this mystery.”
“It’s been three hours since we left the resiplex,” Jax pointed out. “How do you know the forensics droids haven’t turned it up by now?”
“Because,” the droid replied, “I’m monitoring the wavelengths reserved for sector law enforcement transmissions. There has been no mention of such a finding.”
Jax slowly shook his head in disbelief. “One of these days they’re going to home in on that illegal slicing you do and hit you with an echo pulse that’ll leave you about as self-aware as a crisper.”
“Something to look forward to, given the level of intellectual simulation around here,” the droid shot back. “Now, having disposed of the requisite badinage, perhaps we could return to the subject at hand?”
“By all means.” Jax stole another glance at Dejah. She was slumped in her chair, her eyelids fluttering and her breathing much heavier than what was required to keep her lungs expanded. “You might want to keep your voice down, though it doesn’t look like she’s all that aware right now.”
“She’s not,” I-Five confirmed. “My olfactory subprocessor has calculated the volume of alcohol in her blood. Adjusting for species-specificity, I estimate that she will shortly lapse into and then remain in a near-comatose state at least until dawn. Even her pheromone discharges are about twenty proof.”
Jax stuffed a cushion behind Dejah’s head, then leaned forward in his chair. With a hand he waved away a cloud of stimstick smoke that had drifted over from a nearby table full of raucous Kubaz.
“We know that Volette died of a single stab wound to the celiac plexus.” The Jedi stared into the distance. “If I remember my xenobiology classes back in the Temple, that’s the anterior part of the autonomous system node, right?”
“In most hirsute mesomorphic humanoids, such as Caamasi and Equani, yes. A puncture wound of any size there is almost certain to be fatal, much as a wound to the heart is to humans. According to the planetary police ’casts, they’ve hypothesized the murder weapon as a short-edged passive instrument.”
Jax nodded. In the context of the police report, passive meant something other than a vibroblade or other energized weapon. “Then Volette was killed by an extremely primitive knife or its equivalent,” he said. “Which leads us to ask, how was the act performed? If the police theorizing is accurate, something easily concealed but having to be used at close range seems most likely.”
“Which inversely presupposes someone of considerable strength. The anterior region of a Caamasi is protected by a layer of thick cartilage.” The droid gestured at Dejah. “That would seem to exclude her as a suspect.”
Jax nodded. It was certainly true that Dejah could have approached her partner Volette closely without arousing his suspicions, but there was no way she could have stabbed him hard enough to penetrate the protective carapace, especially with a nonvibrating weapon. The Zeltron simply did not possess sufficient musculature.
He realized he felt relief to know that Dejah was not a viable suspect. Had some of those pheromones slipped through to affect his wariness? He hoped not. Life was complex enough already. But even if Dejah Duare could be ruled out, she was only one suspect out of billions. They still had quite a way to go.
“There’s no escaping it, I-Five. We have to find the killer before the prefect’s investigation decides to focus on us. If the cools ever suspect we’re linked to the Whiplash, we’re plasma. They’ll lock us on a moon and throw away the moon.” Jax held up his right hand, showing the sparkling arc of the locator ring that banded his middle finger. “And there’s no way Duare or I can take this police jewelry off or deactivate it without the inbuilt circuitry paralyzing our motor responses while simultaneously communicating our whereabouts to the local cools.”
“Good point, if obvious,” the droid concurred.
“Don’t be so smug. As long as you’re wearing that bolt, you’re just as stuck as—” Jax stopped in midsentence and stared openmouthed as I-Five held up the restraint plug that the police droid had just recently flash-welded to his chassis. The Jedi’s mouth collapsed into a grin as he shook his head. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Yes,” I-Five replied. “Dance.”
Jax took the restraining bolt and examined it. “You never told me you’ve had bootleg anti-restraint programming installed.”
The droid shrugged metal shoulders. “What’s the point of being sentient if you can’t cultivate an air of mystery?”
Jax tossed the bolt back to the droid. I-Five caught it easily without looking in its direction. “And when they try to track you?”
“They’ll find themselves following an ouroboros circuit with which they’ll never quite catch up.” The droid put the bolt on the floor, aimed an index finger at it, and melted it into unrecognizable slag. Then he turned to gaze speculatively at the unconscious Dejah. “It would appear that her plans to leave Coruscant will have to be postponed.”
“It’s Imperial Center now, remember?”
I-Five’s vocabulator produced a sound remarkably like a disdainful sniff. “I’m a droid. I don’t make mistakes.”
“I doubt any passing stormtroopers or Inquisitors would agree.”
“As your father once said: no matter what they call it, it’s still just an overbuilt, overpriced ball of rock.”
Jax went quiet, the mention of his father turning him suddenly introspective. After a while, I-Five was moved to ask, “Does it upset you when your father is mentioned?”
“No. But it does make me wonder at times how he would react to my choice of lifestyle. To the decisions I’ve made.”
The droid moved a little closer. “All too many of those choices and decisions have been foisted on you, Jax. I knew Lorn Pavan better than anyone, and I think he would have been quite proud of you.”
Jax looked up. “I thought he hated the Jedi.”
“He did. But only because they took you from him. He wouldn’t have hated you for becoming one. I think he would have approved of the choices you’ve made—most of them, anyway. Especially your decision to stay here and aid the Whiplash. Lorn admired courage. Particularly the courage to stand up for one’s convictions.”
Jax’s expression was unreadable. “I almost quit, you know.”
I-Five projected mild surprise.
“It was months ago. I was packing my kit, ready to dust. Then Nick Rostu told me about what happened to Master Piell.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t leave after hearing that. Certainly not until I’d completed his last mission.”
“Which you did, to the best of your ability. So tell me: what’s stopping you from leaving now?”
“It will never be finished,” Jax told him. “Defeat the Emperor and Vader, and liberate the galaxy? The idea defines craziness. I should get out now, while there’s still a transport berth with my name on it.”
“I believe Den would agree with you,” the droid replied. “Vociferously.”
“No doubt.” Jax sighed. “And yet …”
“You can’t.”
“You know me so well.”
“I know humans so well. I know your kind with an intimacy that only an outsider can achieve. I’ve seen humanity at its most selfless and noble—and at its most base and ignoble. It can be quite a range. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me at all that you remain here to continue the fight for what you insist is a lost cause. If presented with that choice, I knew from the day I met you which one you would make.”
“Is that so?” Jax looked about him; at the garish holo-ads on the walls and the various species toking, imbibing, or otherwise altering their brain chemistry in pursuit of congenial oblivion. He suddenly felt very tired. “Which choice was that?”
“The right one,” the droid said.
Aurra Sing awoke disoriented, angry, and possessed of a throbbing headache in the ruins of the Jedi Temple. Her baffling opponent was long gone, which was no surprise. What was surprising was that she was still alive.
A guarded inspection of her immediate surroundings confirmed that she was indeed alone. Her opponent, Captain Typho of Naboo, had no doubt fled, taking with him one of her lightsabers. Even in the throes of her fury, Sing had to admit that she was impressed. He had tricked her most cleverly, lulling her into vulnerability and then using her own prosthetic against her. She had briefly succumbed to the worst enemy someone in her profession could face: over-confidence. That accepted, she still had to give the man his due. He was resourceful as well as skilled.
Good. A challenging enemy was a worthwhile enemy. She would enjoy tracking him down.
But such enjoyment would have to wait until she first completed her primary task: the capture of Jax Pavan for Lord Vader. She had no intention of going back to Oovo 4, and the easiest way to ensure that she never saw that hated place again was to fulfill the assignment she had been handed. Not that she had any intention of doing otherwise, even if she could have figured a way out of it. She would have paid Vader for the opportunity to stalk one of the last Jedi.
The night was quiet, save for the eerie whistling of a breeze through the columns and rooms of the ruined Temple. Except for the endless stream of air traffic high overhead there was no movement. All seemed calm again, but Sing did not relax. She could no more stand down from her state of habitual alert than she could stop breathing.
A slight movement behind her …
In the space of a breath Sing’s lightsaber was lit. The bounty hunter swung it in a deadly arc behind her, spinning about as she struck to face whatever foe might be lurking there.
Its body cut neatly in half, a large armored rat writhed momentarily on the ground before her. It shuddered briefly and then lay still.
With a grunt, Aurra Sing deactivated her weapon, clipped it to her belt, and strode off to resume her search for Jax Pavan.
“Extreme discontinuity in Force convergent.” Jax repeated the phrase to himself, then looked at Den and the Paladin. “Any idea what it means?”
“Well,” the Sullustan replied, “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’m fairly certain that I have no karking idea whatsoever.”
“You’re a lot of help.” Jax turned to Laranth. “I hope you’ve got something more substantive.”
The Twi’lek shook her head. “I wish I did. Unfortunately, I’m just as baffled as Den.”
Jax looked around the room. Present were Laranth, Den, and I-Five. Missing were Rhinann and Dejah. Jax didn’t know where the Elomin was. The Zeltron was in one of the bedchambers sleeping off her concussive hangover. He sighed. “Anyone else care to venture a guess?”
I-Five spoke up. “Obviously the concept that is being communicated has something to do with four-dimensional perception. We know that the Cephalon can to a certain extent see into the future the way we can see down a path. Unfortunately, it’s a winding path that seems to meander through mist and clouds, rendering the final picture inconclusive.”
Den raised a brow. “Wow, that was almost poetical. Almost.”
The droid peered down at his companion. “This from a representative of a culture whose crowning artistic achievement is a paean to the military-industrial complex.” I-Five addressed his next remark to Jax. “It’s clear that the Cephalon was trying to apprise us of some future event. It is up to us to figure out its meaning.”
Den rolled his eyes, the result being quite impressive. “Why, why, why do these sort of hints have to be all roundabout and mysterious? Why can’t we for once run into a fortune-teller who’s clear and up front about things? A week from now the Festering Plague will break out in the Blackpit Slums. Wear gloves. Like that.”
“I doubt that the Cephalon was striving to be oracular just for effect,” the droid replied. “Attempts to reduce a four-dimensional tense into Basic are frequently less than completely successful.”
Jax was about to comment when a bulky shadow filled the doorway. It was Rhinann. His gaze swept over the others with monumental detachment and disinterest, to drop anchor upon reaching Jax.
“There are, as far as I have been able to determine,” he said lugubriously, “no lightsabers or components thereof remaining on Coruscant.”
“You’re sure?” Den asked. “Did you look behind the couch?”
Rhinann ignored this. “My investigation into the matter has been thorough and exhaustive. It is, of course, entirely possible that in a city covering five-point-one times one hundred and eight kilometers squared, a weapon approximately one meter long when activated and rather less when not just might have escaped my notice. If you suspect that to be the case, I urge you to continue your own search.”
“What about crystals?” Jax asked.
“No traceable signs of Adegan, Ilum, or Dantooine crystals, either. Again,” Rhinann added, “I cannot guarantee that someone somewhere doesn’t have one sitting on their mantel as a curiosity. There is simply no way to trace such a thing.”
Jax nodded, thinking. Though the majority of Jedi had been slaughtered by the clones offworld, there had still been a respectable garrison at the Temple when Anakin Skywalker had initiated his one-man pogrom. Furthermore, Jax knew that Palpatine had ordered their weapons destroyed. If Rhinann was right, the troopers had been most thorough.
Laranth said to the Elomin, “You’re patently wrong in one instance. Darth Vader still carries one.”
“Vader’s a Sith,” Jax said before the Elomin could respond. “Or so gossip has it. I think it’s true. It’s the only way to explain his proficiency with both the lightsaber and the Force.” His expression fell. “It would appear that you all were right. I’m not meant to have one.”
“Being a Jedi is more than just having a lightsaber,” Laranth pointed out. “Through the use of the Force one can become proficient in other modes of fighting that are almost as effective.”
“I know.” Jax looked away. “It’s just that I never really had a choice. I had only just graduated to full-fledged Jedi Knighthood when Order Sixty-six was implemented. After that, my life was all about survival. A big part of that was keeping my head down and not using the Force.” He offered a wry smile. “I’ve really only had the opportunity to use it once in a life-or-death battle, against Prince Xizor. And the irony is that he had the lightsaber and I was reduced to using a lightwhip.”
“Not to mention a somewhat sputtery connection to the Force,” Den added.
“Unless you have some reason for my continuing to pursue this chimerical task, I shall consider it settled. I have other matters to which I must attend.” The Elomin’s sepulchral voice said quite clearly that, as far as he was concerned, the subject was closed.
Then to his surprise, Jax heard Den say, “Wait a minute.”
As he listened to his own mouth forming words seemingly independent of his brain, Den was somewhat taken aback by what he found himself saying. He was also a little nervous. It had happened before, this disconnect between his tongue and his head. It was as if the former was ruled by a semi-autonomous sub-brain, like one of the Cephalon’s appendages. The results were seldom good.
“Wait a minute,” he heard himself saying. “I’m sure Rhinann has done an exemplary job trying to locate a lightsaber. But there’s more than one way to gut a gokob.”
“How colorful,” I-Five said.
Den ignored him. “I was a reporter once, remember? A good one, back in the day. I can track a story over bare rock in a monsoon.”
The droid clicked two metal fingers together. “There is a point to all this, I presume? The organics in the room aren’t getting any younger.”
“Neither is your humor.” Den looked at Jax. “If you really feel that getting your own lightsaber will help you function more effectively, then let me see what I can find out.”
Rhinann gave him an opaque stare. “What makes you think that you can succeed where I did not?”
Den raised pacifying hands. “Hey, no offense, but I just have a feeling about this, y’know? Maybe it’ll lead to something, maybe not. Either way, it’s no hair off your ears.”
“That’s enough,” Jax interrupted. “Den, if you’re serious about this, you’re welcome to have a crack at it, but in your spare time. Our first priority is finding Volette’s killer, and I need your fabled search-and-find abilities working on that foremost.”
“Whatever you say, boss.” Den settled back in his chair. He still wasn’t quite certain why he had volunteered to take on this extra task, although one reason was self-evident: he didn’t like Rhinann. The tall, saturnine biped could bring the mood of any group crashing down faster than the gravity well of a neutron star. Besides, he hadn’t flexed that particular set of muscles in quite a while. It would be a worthwhile diversion.
As long as he didn’t let his inquiries bring him too close to Vader’s orbit …
“We had no real friends,” the sad-eyed Zeltron was saying. “Just acquaintances and professional associates. We hadn’t been on Coruscant all that long. A little over two months, and most of that time was spent in making contacts that were invariably more business than social. We were …”
Dejah paused, setting her jaw momentarily, and Jax was surprised to see that she was overcoming the urge to cry. He had heard that, overall, the defining characteristic of the Zeltron species was that of hedonism. That they tended to be industrious and productive only with an eye toward that end, and were unwilling or unable to deal with negative emotions. Dejah, in contrast, seemed to be made of somewhat sterner stuff.
She continued. “So you see that we were rather isolated. Save for Baron Umber, whom we saw quite frequently.”
Jax, Dejah, and I-Five were sitting in the bleachers of a local recreational park, watching a game of shock-ball being played between two young groups—mostly Rodians versus Haserians. The crowd was following the sport enthusiastically, providing plenty of ambient noise as cover for their conversation.
I-Five pondered briefly. “The identifier Baron Umber is unfamiliar to me. The title naturally indicates a person of importance. Perhaps you could elaborate?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I assumed most people around here were familiar with the name. He’s a Vindalian. I understand that not too much is known about them. We heard that they’re rather secretive. One thing that is known is that they tend to be great art fanciers. Certainly the Baron was no exception. He bought a great many of Ves’s best light sculptures.” She blinked in sudden realization. “I don’t know if he’s been made aware yet. Keeping to themselves, Vindalians pay less attention to what’s called the ‘common’ news than do many species. If he doesn’t know, this is going to hit him quite hard.”
“I’m sure the sector police have notified him,” Jax pointed out.
Her lips compressed into a thin scarlet line. “That’s right, of course.” Her tone was bitter. “No doubt they delivered the information with all their customary tact.”
“My impression is that Pol Haus is a pretty good cool,” Jax told her. “Which is one way of saying that you can trust him as long as you don’t cross him. But like anyone in his position he’s not immune to either politics or pressure. He won’t let anyone or anything jeopardize his job. My take is that he’s only investigating Volette’s death because your partner was a minor celebrity. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s pressure on him already to wrap it up fast, stick any results in a tube, and bury it. He’ll take any solution that seems reasonable and that answers most of the questions. I’m sure that his higher-ups don’t want a big deal made out of a Caamasi case. Not when Palpatine took the political risk of having Caamas destroyed. If indeed he was ultimately responsible.”
Dejah looked grim. “So you would advise me to leave sleeping akks lie?”
“It would seem the safest course, if we’re to get you offworld,” I-Five said.
Turning away from them, she watched the game for a few minutes. One of the Rodians scored, and the crowd went wild. Finally she said, with more assurance than she had exhibited in some time, “No. Ves wouldn’t abjure justice for me if the situation were reversed. I can’t leave this place until I’m convinced that everything possible has been done to find his murderer.”
Jax took a deep breath. “Well, I admire your determination, if not the decision.” He looked at I-Five. “Next move: I suggest we find this Baron Umber and have a chat with him.” He smiled thinly. “We can talk about art.”
“His conapt is located at Seventeen Gallifrey Lane, Sector One-Oh-One-Seven in Manarai Hills,” I-Five replied immediately.
Dejah looked surprised. “That’s his private address. It’s unlisted. How did you …?”
The droid tapped the side of his head with a metal finger. “Connections.”
eleven
The Manarai Hills district was one of the posher neighborhoods on Imperial Center, which was saying something. An eclectic combination of architectural styles, the luxury conapts that made up the majority of its domiciles had been designed by the renowned Benits Stinex, one of the galaxy’s premier architects. The building Umber lived in was semi-autonomous, its exterior accented with smooth, streamlined chevrons and towers. Once again, Jax felt profoundly out of place.
The melded chimes that made up the door were answered by a 3PO protocol droid, its silver chassis burnished to a high gleam. After an unmistakably disapproving glance in the direction of I-Five, it acknowledged Dejah immediately.
“Please come in. My master will be most happy to see you.” It ushered Dejah through the foyer as Jax and I-Five followed.
“Please, rest comfortably,” the droid insisted. “May I offer you beverages? No? Then I will inform the Baron of your unexpected and extremely welcome visit.” It shuffled away across a vast expanse of burgundy carpet, leaving a flattened trail of scuffed carpet in its wake, and disappeared through an arch.
Jax studied his surroundings. They were expansive, with curved walls dimpled and folded to allow more space for the exhibition of paintings, friezes, ceramic floats, and other artwork. Tastefully displayed on slowly moving pedestals scattered around the floor were several examples of art that had to be the work of the late Ves Volette. Sculptures formed of animate light, they writhed and undulated hypnotically within their individual containment fields. As he looked on, they shifted spectra according to how they had been woven, cycling through various hues and patterns. Each was uniformly delicate, ethereal, and utterly beautiful.
He glanced at Dejah. The Zeltron was looking at the sculptures as well, her expression forlorn.
Approaching one of the sculptures, I-Five examined its undulant prismatic form closely. “Most intriguing. The energy signature is quite similar to the arc wave of a lightsaber. I would hazard a guess that its energetic source is a crystal—Adegan, Luxum, or something similar.”
Jax raised an eyebrow. “The same kind of crystals used to drive a lightsaber.”
“Quite right,” said a new and commanding voice.
Jax turned about to see a bipedal figure standing in the archway. He was tall and slender to the point of anorexia, dressed in flowing robes of shimmersilk. His features seemed quite human, although something about the shape of the face and the ears gave a subtle vulpine cast to his appearance. As he came toward them he made straight for the Zeltron.
“My dear Dejah.” His voice was warm and buttery with compassion. “Such a shock. I was told of Ves’s fate not two hours ago by that thuggish police prefect.” Reaching out, he took her hands and held them in both of his. “You must be devastated. I tried to comm you as soon as I was informed.”
“I turned my link off,” she whispered.
“Perfectly natural, and who could blame you? If there is anything you need, anything at all, you have only to ask.” Looking to the side, he took note of Jax and I-Five, his gaze sharply appraising. “I see you’ve brought a friend.” I-Five stiffened at the cavalier omission but said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Dejah said. “Where are my manners? Baron Umber, Jax Pavan, captain of the merchant ship Far Ranger. Jax, this is Baron Vlaçan Umber of Flavin Hold, Vindalia.”
In his all-too-brief tenure as a Jedi Knight, Jax had learned the Galactic Standard protocol for addressing nobility of various species. He inclined his head and made the proper hand gesture. “An honor, Baron.” He saw Umber’s eyes widen slightly in surprise, and realized that his studied courtliness must seem incongruous coming from someone dressed so shabbily.
“The honor is mine,” the Baron replied, making the requisite response motion. He glanced briefly at I-Five, who stood in formal posture beside Jax, looking every centimeter the proper protocol droid. “One of the Orbots line,” the Baron commented. “Something of a collector’s novelty these days. Nicely restored.” Jax repressed a smile as he thought of the acidic response that was no doubt crackling through the droid’s positronic brain.
“Baron,” the Jedi ventured, “if you don’t mind, I have a few questions I’d like to ask. They concern your relationship with Ves Volette.”
Once again Umber could not quite conceal his surprise. He looked questioningly at Dejah, who nodded reassuringly. “It’s all right, Vlaçan. You can trust this one. He’s bound himself to help me find Ves’s killer.”
“I—see.” Despite the Zeltron’s assurance, the Vindalian’s skepticism was obvious. He looked at Jax again, his gaze much more critical this time. “Are you—affiliated with the sector police?”
Jax found himself more amused than irritated by the Baron’s obvious disdain. “I’m an independent investigative agent. Dejah asked me to pursue this matter through unofficial channels.”
Keeping his eyes on Jax, Umber addressed his next question to the Zeltron. “Are you sure this is wise, Dejah? For one thing, I strongly doubt that any facts or evidence uncovered by this method will be considered admissible in a tribunal.”
It was I-Five who responded to that. “Actually, the law admits evidence submitted by outside sources on deontological grounds.”
The Vindalian’s gaze narrowed as he regarded the mechanical. “I don’t recall anyone giving you permission to speak, droid. Nor do I require instruction in legal proceedings from a nonspecialist device.”
“A knowledge of the law, especially as it relates to Imperial dictates, is an important facet of protocol,” I-Five said. “You must admit that these days, with new laws being promulgated every day and old ones revised or eliminated, it is next to impossible even for specialists in such matters to keep up. You need not be embarrassed to confess ignorance in such matters.”
The Baron seemed on the verge of apoplexy. “I was not confessing anything!” he sputtered. “Least of all ignorance! Of all the—”
Reaching out, Dejah put a hand on his arm. The Zeltron touch was enough to calm their host somewhat. He was by no means pacified, however. He stared hard at I-Five. “You’re right, however. Today’s statute is tomorrow’s misdemeanor, so to speak. None of which addresses the matter of you speaking unbidden.”
Jax hastened to interpose himself between the two. “I-Five’s encoding has been modified. He doesn’t always react like your standard protocol model.” The Jedi glanced warningly at the droid. “Sometimes he suffers from an intermittent glitch known as Big Mouth Syndrome.”
I-Five projected annoyance. “The dimensions of my verbal simulation orifice are absolutely factory-standard.”
“Maybe,” Jax said, “but the brain behind it sure isn’t. You will show our host proper respect.”
A moment of uncomfortable silence ensued as the Jedi glared at the droid. Then I-Five turned to face Baron Umber and bowed slightly from the waist.
“My sincere apologies, sir, if I have inadvertently offended you.”
“And …?” Jax prompted him.
I-Five’s immobile metal countenance somehow managed to look disdainful—or perhaps Jax was reading too much into it. He hoped so, at any rate. “I also regret speaking out of turn,” the droid continued.
Umber was mollified. “Well, no harm done, no insult intended. Especially if, as you say, this model’s programming has been clumsily personalized.”
“Clumsily?” I-Five echoed. “May I just point out that—”
“—our questions will be concise and our time here brief,” Jax hastily concluded for the droid, punctuating his assurance with a glare in I-Five’s direction that fell just short of melting several of the softer alloys. He stepped between the droid and their host, blocking the former’s view from the latter. “Dejah tells me,” he continued, “that you’re a longtime collector of the late Ves Volette’s work.”
Umber gestured assent. Turning, he indicated the alcoves where many of the artist’s finest creations twirled and flashed in syncopated brilliance. By themselves, they provided more than enough light to illuminate the end of the room in which they were displayed.
“From the moment I encountered his works I knew I had to have one,” the Baron said. “The first led to a second, the second demanded a third to offset its shape and style, and by the time I determined to purchase a fourth and fifth, I counted myself not merely a patron of Ves Volette, but his friend.” He looked to where Dejah sat quietly on a couch. “And his companion’s friend as well.”
She smiled. “Ves abhorred the formal art scene on Coruscant, where creators are expected to mingle with potential buyers, flatter their usually nonexistent taste, and offer discounts. He was a true artist. If you liked his work, fine. If not, he dismissed you, but without anger or prejudice. He recognized that tastes differ, or all art would be the same.”
Umber nodded solemnly. “That was one of the things that made Ves and his work so special. He was entirely independent of the commercial art arena. He did what he wanted, the way he wanted.”
Dejah was obviously thinking back to happier times. “I remember once when a Senator from a wealthy world approached Ves about one of his pieces.” She smiled. “He asked if Ves would alter the main spectral current so that the result would match the décor of the Senator’s sleeping chamber. The asking price for the work was high, and Ves could have pocketed substantial credits. He simply refused, quietly and without rancor. ‘This is the color scheme that coalesced in my mind,’ he told the Senator. ‘This is the pattern the color took. It is what it is—just as are you and I.’ ” She looked up at Jax. “That was Ves. He was as straightforward as his art.”
“Straightforward is another word for blunt,” Jax said. “And bluntness could be misconstrued as arrogance.”
The Baron hid a smile. Jax looked at him. “Are you amused, Baron?”
“My apologies. But had you known Ves even for a short time, you would realize the absurdity of your suggestion. He never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“But he sometimes did?” Jax glanced at Dejah, who nodded slowly.
“Most people excused it on the grounds that he was an artist. Just being creative seems to excuse a multitude of offenses that would get ordinary folk thrown out of a party.”
“Or killed,” I-Five said. This time Umber did not upbraid the droid for speaking without permission.
Jax turned back to their host. “Did he ever offend you, Baron?”
Umber looked startled. “No, never. I understood his art, therefore I understood him. We always got on well, and there was never a time when I was displeased to see him. We held differing political opinions, of course, and discussion of them sometimes led to raised voices and sharp gestures, but never to hostility.” He paused, then asked, “You’re not suggesting that I had anything to do with his death?”
“Of course not,” Jax replied immediately, though that was exactly what he was thinking. As a Jedi, he was sworn never to lie. Occasional misdirection in the service of the greater good was, however, permissible. “I’m just trying to build a picture of your relationship with Volette in order to get a better idea of what he was like, what his social life was like, and through that maybe a hint or two of the kind of individual who might have wanted him dead.”
“For example,” I-Five suggested, “someone who owned a surfeit of an artist’s work would stand to profit substantially by his death, if his passing subsequently raised the value of that individual’s work.”
Jax contemplated deactivating his outspoken mechanical companion. What he really wanted to do at that moment was use the Velmorian energy sword sheathed at his waist to seal the droid’s mouth shut.
To his credit, however, and somewhat to Jax’s surprise, the Baron took no visible offense; instead he simply nodded thoughtfully. “That certainly might be so. In the case of Ves’s work, however, he has not been dead long enough for the market to be thus affected. And I treasure even the least of his pieces in my possession and have not the slightest intention of selling any of them, so their monetary value is of only peripheral concern to me.” Spreading his arms wide to encompass their elegant surroundings, he added, “As you can see, my position and personal resources are adequate to allow me to comfortably maintain a certain lifestyle without the need to—I believe the Basic term is hock—any of my property. Even if such a necessity should occur, my Volettes would be the last assets I would part with.”
Dejah managed an approving smile. “Of all Ves’s clients, Baron Umber more than anyone deserves the honorific title of patron. Ves knew it, too.”
Their host performed an odd little sideways bow in her direction. “You honor me with your confidence, my dear.” Straightening, he looked back at Jax. “You have other questions? Perhaps you would like to search my domicile for a murder weapon, or signs of Ves’s DNA?”
“No, no.” Jax waved a hand. “I believe what you’ve told us.” He looked toward the couch. “Even more, I believe what Dejah has said about you. Coming here, meeting you in person, seeing how you feel about the artist’s work, I’m confident you had nothing to do with his demise.” Leaning slightly to his right, he peered past their host. “You’re not alone here, are you?”
Pivoting, Umber gestured to where a figure stood behind a fold of arch. “Come out, my dear, and meet our guests. Dejah is here.”
The Vindalian female was notably larger than her mate, though not unattractive. While sexual dimorphism was common among humanoid species, it was usually the male who was larger. Usually, but not always. In this case, the female who emerged from concealment not only massed more than the Baron, she was half a dozen centimeters taller as well.
“This is Kirma, my wife,” the Baron informed the visitors.
The Baroness was casually dressed in a sweeping spinner-silk gown that clung to her form and did little to conceal her bulk. Jax found it somewhat startling. What looked bad on one variety of humanoid, he reflected, was often considered immensely flattering on another. Not knowing anything about the species, he could only assume that, given the clingy nature of her attire, Vindalians found size attractive.
In addition to the gown, she wore a string of lightly polished green stones around her neck. No astrogeologist, Jax didn’t recognize them. It was the only jewelry on her person. Given the Baron’s status, he concluded that she was either being deliberately modest or else had not had adequate time to prepare herself to greet visitors. His gaze drifted back to Dejah, sitting alone on the couch. She wore no jewelry and the most basic and functional of attire, but to Jax she outshone the noble’s mate by several orders of magnitude.
“Dejah has engaged this gentleman,” Umber was saying, “in the hope of finding who killed Ves.” Yet again he failed to mention the presence of I-Five. This time, thankfully, the droid kept his indignation to himself. Instead, he was studying the new arrival intently.
“Dear Ves.” Kirma Umber blinked rapidly, which Jax assumed to be a sign of anguish among her kind. “Who would murder a harmless artist?”
I-Five had kept silent about as long as he was constitutionally able. “A serious critic.”
Kirma glanced at him, the droid’s sarcasm apparently—and fortunately—lost on her. “Are you having any luck in your investigation …?”
“Jax Pavan. We’ve only just begun. We’re trying to build a picture of Ves’s last moments by interviewing those who were closest to him.” He nodded in Dejah’s direction. “Since you’re the artist’s primary collectors, we came here first.”
“My husband is the one who is enamored of the light sculptures. Though I can certainly appreciate the skill that went into their construction.”
“You’re not upset at the artist’s death?” I-Five asked.
“What a thing to say!” Kirma Umber’s extensive lashes flared. “Ves Volette was a fascinating, devoted, and kind sentient. If he had been a lowly fashioner of cheap tourist trinkets, I would have been equally as fond of him. Of course,” she added tersely, “being a machine, I don’t expect you to comprehend such feelings.”
“Of course not,” I-Five said drily. He went silent again, for which Jax was profoundly grateful.
Kirma turned to Jax. “Aren’t you duplicating the work of the police?”
“Supplementing.” Jax smiled. “My friends and I can work outside official channels. You never know what you may find there.”
“You can see how upset we both are,” the Baron said. “If there’s anything I can do to facilitate your investigation, I insist that you make use of myself and my good offices.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Jax glanced at Dejah. “I told you this wouldn’t take very long.”
“You’ve only just arrived.” Umber stepped closer. From his body wafted a faint odor of pomegrail, though Jax was not sensitive enough to tell if it was natural or the result of a flattering additive. “Won’t you stay for second-morn meal?”
“Thanks,” I-Five responded, “but we’re not hungry.”
Even the Baron had to smile nominally at that. “There’s nothing I can offer you?” he persisted, looking from Dejah back to Jax.
The Jedi hesitated. “Actually, there might be. I need a compressed energy crystal. Adegan or Luxum would be best, but I’d take whatever you’d be willing to part with.”
Umber acted as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “You want to buy one of my Volettes?”
Jax shook his head. “Not a sculpture. Just a CEC.”
The Baron was horrified and made no effort to hide it. “The CEC is at the heart of each sculpture. No,” he corrected himself quickly, “the CEC is the heart of each sculpture.”
Though a bit taken aback by the force of the Vindalian’s reaction, having already ventured the request, Jax persisted. “Pardon my ignorance—I’m not an artist, and I’m not exactly familiar with the genre—but couldn’t you substitute something for a piece of Adegan? Another energy source? Marilite, maybe, or pressure-treated halurium grains?”
Umber was clearly restraining himself with an effort. “Since you are honest enough to readily confess your ignorance, I take no offense. You do not understand. Once the CEC is removed from a Volette light sculpture, it collapses. It cannot be restored, certainly not by replacing the energy source. One can have an image repainted, reholoed, retooled, or a carving of some solid material reproduced. While not the original, an excellent copy may be so obtained. But once a Volette light sculpture is deactivated, it becomes as dead as the unfortunate artist himself.”
“What would happen if you tried it?” I-Five asked.
Kirma looked at the droid. “You would get an amorphous blob of light. That’s all. Maybe with color, according to the design. But the shape, the dance, the aesthetic, would be lost forever.” She eyed her mate. “Isn’t that the truth of it?”
“Truth it is,” Umber confirmed. “I would no more destroy a piece of Volette art than I would surrender a limb. Especially since there will be no more. What exists now is all that there will ever be.” Turning away from his visitors, he let his gaze roam over his collection. Even without resorting to the Force, Jax could feel the powerful emotions emanating from him. “Even if I needed the credits, young man, I would not—could not—comply.” He turned back to Jax, and his gaze was hard. “I do not have the right. Maintenance of the Volette sculptures is more than a joy, now. It is an obligation.”
Dejah was nodding her head in agreement as she spoke to Jax. “I told you what kind of collector the Baron is. What kind of friend he’s been to Ves and me.”
“Yes, you did.” Jax sighed. If he was ever going to acquire a CEC to power a lightsaber, it clearly wouldn’t be from here. He would have to find another source. Unless, he reminded himself, Den had better luck.
After his wife excused herself, the Baron escorted them toward the exit. “Just as a matter of personal curiosity, what does a private investigator want with a compressed energy crystal? I realize that such a scarce article has a multitude of uses, but I can’t see how it would prove useful to someone in your profession. Leastwise, not sufficiently to justify the cost.” He paused, adding, “Of course, you don’t have to explain yourself. It’s none of my business what you want with a CEC.”
“He’s a budding inventor,” I-Five explained. “He wants to make a functional probe that’ll enable him to trace the neural paths to all the abnormal synaptic connections in his own brain.”
As they reached the doorway Jax shot the droid a look. “Speaking of abnormal synaptic connections, maybe it’s time someone took an aligner to the back of your skull.”
“You see?” I-Five gestured by way of reinforcement. “Verbal confirmation of what I just said.”
Umber forced himself to repress a smile. “In addition to being remarkably, even dangerously, outspoken, your droid effects a most distinctive sense of humor.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Jax stepped aside to let Dejah exit. “He’s just rude. As to your question, Baron—I am looking for a CEC to use in my work. I’m sure you understand that someone in my position can’t go into intimate details.”
Umber’s eyebrows rose in response. “Intimate, is it? Well, then, I won’t pry any further.” As Jax looked on, he put his arms around Dejah. Jax thought the clinch lasted a good deal longer than civility required, but the lag was understandable. Those who had the opportunity to embrace red Zeltrons, especially of the opposite gender, were reluctant to let them go.
Stepping back, the Baron finally released her, though he still hung on to her extended hands. “If you need anything, Dejah, anything at all, Kirma and I are at your beck and call.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Baron. For everything. Ves would thank you, too, if he were here.”
“He is.” Turning, Umber nodded back into the domicile. “Vindalia willing, he always will be.”
They were in the lift that was taking them back to the aircar hangar when Jax voiced the conclusion he had reached. “I don’t think this Baron Umber had anything to do with Ves’s death.”
Dejah nodded knowingly. “I told you. He was our best friend on Coruscant. Whenever there was a problem of any kind, Ves trusted him to take care of it.”
“You divine a lot from a brief conversation in someone’s home,” I-Five commented to Jax.
Jax eyed the droid. “You disagree with my assessment? If so, give me reasons. Other than the fact that anyone could see you took a personal dislike to the noble.”
“I did no such thing.” The droid didn’t seem irritated. “I reacted to him and treated him exactly as I would have any other potential lead we might investigate.”
“Loutishly.”
“Directly,” I-Five countered. “I am not confrontational. Merely straightforward. That’s how one obtains desired information most rapidly.”
“Maybe when communication is machine-to-machine,” Jax said. “As a protocol droid, you should know that interviewing organics requires patience, understanding, and something else that seems to have been wiped from your memory.”
“Which would be—?”
“Tact. If I’d let you run your vocabulator, we would have been thrown out of that dwelling in the first three minutes.”
I-Five executed a shrug. “Small loss, since your client had already half convinced you there was nothing to be gained from speaking with the Vindalian anyway.”
An exasperated Jax fell silent, prompting the droid to prove he was still a protocol model by adding, “I’m sorry he wouldn’t sell you a CEC.”
Jax shrugged. “Art lovers. A species unto themselves.”
Dejah put a hand on his arm. The simple gesture immediately calmed him, redirected his thoughts, heightened his emotions, and took away much of the frustration of having wasted half a day learning essentially nothing. Those were only a few of the things the Zeltron touch could do.
“At any rate, I don’t disagree with your assessment,” the droid said, “because I assume that you utilized the Force to subtly probe the Baron while you were conversing with him.”
Jax nodded as the three of them stepped out of the turbolift. At this time of day the hangar was not an especially busy place, and they took their time to enjoy the expensive décor of their surroundings as they waited for their transportation to unlock, activate, and arrive.
“I did,” Jax assured the droid. “I was monitoring him the whole time we were there. I got nothing that would indicate he’s in any way involved with Volette’s murder.”
“Neither did I. Galvanic response, eye contact, epidermal flush—none of it provoked anything like a suspicious reaction.”
“Good. That settles it.”
“Did you check the female?”
Jax raised an eyebrow. On his right, Dejah stared at the droid in disbelief. “Surely you don’t think Kirma Umber had anything to do with Ves’s death? That’s absurd!”
I-Five replied calmly, “Why?”
Taken aback, Dejah had to think a moment. “Well, for one thing, she wasn’t even that interested in Ves’s work. The Baron was the real aficionado. I mean, she certainly admired it—how could anyone not? She shared the Baron’s respect for it, if not his passion.”
“That doesn’t persuade me that my observation constitutes an absurdity.” The droid turned to Jax. “Surely everyone who had contact with the dead artist is a reasonable suspect.”
“Even me?” Dejah challenged him.
“Even you, although you’ve been ruled out due to physical inability.”
“Physical inability? You ambulatory circuit board, I’ll show you—”
“All right, you two.” Jax spoke sternly to the droid. “Dejah’s not a suspect, I-Five. If she had anything to do with her partner’s death, I would have sensed it.”
The droid made a sniffing sound. “That, at least, I can appreciate.” He looked at the still-angry Zeltron. “You see? I always respond to rational conclusions.” To Jax he continued: “My question remains—what about the Baroness?”
Jax shrugged. “I suppose I should have probed her, just to fulfill the formalities. Still, I think Dejah is right. The Baroness was a friend to them even if she didn’t entirely share her husband’s boundless enthusiasm for Volette’s work.”
“And please keep in mind,” Dejah said with asperity, “that I have empathic abilities of my own—which rang no alarms.”
“In any event,” Jax said, “I suspect Pol Haus and his people will perform their own thorough checks on the both of them.”
I-Five still wasn’t satisfied. “I doubt that the prefect’s forensics team will include an investigator versed in the ways of the Force.”
Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Dejah’s convertible. As they slipped into the traffic stream, Jax chewed his lower lip. He waited for her to slide in beside a transport that was as ugly as it was functional. Within less than a minute they were accelerating on automatic. Then the Zeltron looked at him. “What now?”
“I suppose you have a list of the rest of Ves’s buyers and of any nonprofessional social contacts?”
She nodded. “Whoever killed him left the studio intact. I haven’t made a detailed check of it yet.” Her gaze turned forward, to take in the massive flow of traffic between the towering buildings. “If nothing’s been disturbed, then all that information will still be there. After I drop you and I-Five off, I’ll collect it.”
“Good. We’ll make a list and start following up.”
“What will we be looking for?” she asked.
“Any close acquaintance who’s gone missing, or simply moved away. Anyone who tried to buy one or more of Ves’s works just before he died. And especially anyone who might have reason to hold a grudge against him. Political, professional, you never know in situations like this. A sale that was withdrawn. A negotiation for a particular piece that fell through. Something as seemingly insignificant as a perceived insult delivered at a meeting.” He glanced over at her. “We’ll be relying on you to recall any such incidents.”
“I’ll do my best,” she promised.
The aircar accelerated as the Zeltron pulled it out of line and headed downward in the direction of Poloda Place.
twelve
Aurra Sing entered the chamber of her new employer. The two Red Guards escorting her stopped at the entrance. The door hissed shut behind her, and she was alone with Darth Vader.
She stood, taking in her surroundings but not letting herself be absorbed by them. The room was dimly lit by human standards, but the low-level lighting posed no obstacle to her vision. She could clearly see the dimensions of the small chamber, could see there was no furniture save for a single formfit chair and desk. One of the walls was inset with graphic readout screens, serial port plugs, and other devices she didn’t immediately recognize.
Vader stood at the room’s far end, the stentorian sound of his breathing, regular and even, filling the air. The insectile orbs that covered his eyes—if indeed he had eyes—were turned toward her, but with Vader, one could never tell what he was looking at. His vision seemed to encompass every direction. And what he did not see through his eyes, Sing knew, he sensed through the Force.
She wondered how he slept—or, indeed, if he slept. One of the many rumors about the being hidden in the biosuit held that he had been hideously burned by either acid or fire, and as a result of the damage done to his lungs and throat he required the constant monitoring and assistance of the portable respiratory apparatus, which prevented him from lying down for little more than brief periods at a time. So, according to speculation, he was forced to rest while sitting or standing erect.
Most of the rumors of his origin, disparate though they were, agreed on one thing—that Vader was more machine than man. She wondered what motivated him, what drove him forward through the days. Even a Sith Lord, which Vader was rumored to be, needed incentive to carry out the assignments that Palpatine had chosen for him or that he had selected for himself, to push him to complete tasks that another might find overwhelming.
She thought she knew.
Hate drove him.
Hate motivated Vader to get through each day and night. Hate was the fuel that fired his existence. Having given himself over to the dark side, he had done so unreservedly and completely. Sing was sure that nothing remained within him of humanity, of compassion, of sympathy for his fellow humanoids or any other sentient species. Her own connection with the Force was strong enough to tell her that Vader did not distinguish or discriminate among any of them. Those brought into his presence could be certain of one thing: all would be treated equally without mercy.
For hate to succeed as a form of motivation, it requires focus. One needs a subject, or subjects. Sing suspected that this was not a problem for Vader. There was always someone new to despise, some previously unrecognized individual to draw his attention and his enmity. And if a fallow period manifested itself, he could always rely on the Emperor to supply him with fresh subjects to investigate and deal with. Palpatine also hated indiscriminately, she had heard it said, but he could control it better, could more exquisitely manipulate the full power of the dark side. No doubt Vader aspired to exercise such mastery one day as well.
But for now the hate that filled him and overflowed from him was an uncontrollable firestorm, a raging river, a reactor on permanent overload. Fury shot through him with every beat of what was left of his heart. It drove him the way some unseen goal or deep desire or unfulfilled need drove other, lesser, men. Sing could feel it, like the radiant heat that escaped from a closed blast furnace. He couldn’t completely damp it; the best he could do was direct it. In that regard, she knew, purpose was useful.
Which was where Jax Pavan figured. And her as well.
There were, undoubtedly, great maneuverings afoot that demanded the majority of the Dark Lord’s attention. It could not be easy, Sing speculated. Such vast governmental changes did not happen in one single swoop or by a day’s worth of orders. There was still much to be done: important politicians and nobility to convince, persuade, bribe, or assassinate; great commercial concerns to bring into the fold; and species both humanoid and nonhumanoid to be bound by treaty or bombed into oblivion. However much he might have enjoyed personally tracking down and ridding himself of that turbulent Jedi, Jax Pavan, when the fates of entire worlds were at stake, attention must be focused on the business of the Empire. He had to resign himself, at least for now, to dealing with Pavan through a second party. A professional.
Aurra Sing.
She was unarmed, of course. Her weapons had been confiscated at the Palace entrance. While Darth Vader was master of all he surveyed, she did not deem him foolish enough to rely altogether on the Force to ensure his safety. It was all well and good to let the dark side flow through one. To be truly effective, however, it needed not only to be manipulated by skill but also be guided by intelligence. Force or no Force, Vader was by no means foolish enough to permit something as simple, utilitarian, and lethal as a primitive bomb or blaster into his presence.
“Sing.” A single monosyllable of acknowledgment.
“Lord Vader.” She didn’t bow, save for a slight inclination of the head. If Vader was bothered by that, he gave no sign of it.
“Your presence precedes you.”
“Only to someone who knows the Force.” Without being prompted, or given permission, she came several steps closer. “Quite a residence—this antechamber doesn’t do it justice.” She glanced at the wall’s electronics, then back at him.
He waved a black-clad hand. “My … lifestyle … requires the constant attention and utilization of certain technical accoutrements that are alien to most.”
Nodding, she examined the sharp angles that had been molded into the ceiling, the jagged cartouches on the walls. “In design you favor the abstract, I see.”
“I am most comfortable when bounded by inorganic patterns and mathematical precision.”
“Yes,” she agreed, lowering her gaze to regard him directly. “Your passions are, so it is said, quantifiable and clinical.” Her tone turned curious. “Or are they mere divertissements?”
His tone did not change, but nonetheless seemed colder. “Do you presume to try to comprehend my motivations? They are beyond you. They are beyond anyone.”
“I presume nothing,” she told him. “I like to have the best understanding I can of whoever employs me. In my line of work it’s important to know all you can about your target. It’s also useful to know all you can about who pays you.”
“Credits.” The massive dark figure before her let out a derisive hiss. “What a weak thing to motivate and bind people together.”
She shrugged. “Works for me. What would you have it replaced by?”
His voice rose, as did a clenched fist. “Unity! Organization!”
She said wryly, “I’ll take the credits, thanks.”
He made a gesture of dismissal. “Even among those from whom one might expect better, the braying of fools deafens.”
Sing tensed. She had no weapons, but that did not mean she was unarmed. “Are you calling me a fool—Lord Vader?”
He laughed.
Few people had heard the Dark Lord of the Sith laugh. When amused, his reaction as promulgated by the specialized respiratory equipment that enveloped him inclined more toward a hissing sound. But this was a real laugh, as genuine as it was humorless.
“You amuse me.” He leaned slightly forward. “A rare occurrence, one that by itself justifies a portion of what the Imperial government is paying you.”
Letting her left foot drift slightly backward and lowering her upper body, she glared at him. This monstrosity in black fabric and metal was causing her to lose her temper. On the rare occasions when that happened, it usually resulted in someone dying.
“I’m nobody’s court jester. You engaged me to capture someone or, failing that, to kill him. I’m not averse to slaying two for the price of one.”
Vader’s amusement was now boundless. Black-gloved hands spread wide. “But if you kill me, Aurra Sing, then who will remain to authorize payment of the credits you so ardently desire?”
Turning her head to one side, she spat deliberately onto the polished floor. “I’ve already filled out the necessary forms.”
“Wonderful!” he said, laughing again. “You are more than I hoped you would be. I foresee the development of a lasting and mutually beneficial professional relationship between us.”
Flattery washed off the bounty hunter like mercury off steel. “I only continue to work for someone whom I respect—and who respects me.”
“So it’s respect you want, is it?” He took a step forward and she tensed, both hands clenching slowly. “I thought it was only a sum of credits. Money is easily given, Sing. It is nothing more than chaff. Respect—respect cannot be given. It must be earned.”
She came straight at him.
It took only a few steps. A little of the Force perfectly in tune with bands of lithe muscle. In a second one out-thrust fist would be in his face and she would see what that composite armor was made of. She knew of no one who had ever seen what lay beneath that mask. She intended to be the first.
Her fist never made contact. Raising his right hand and bringing it around in a swift arc, Vader blocked the blow and sent the body behind it flying across the room. As she flew, a startled but still wholly self-aware Sing tucked and rolled. She hit the opposite wall hard, bounced off, landed on her feet, and immediately came at him again.
“The reflexes of an animal,” Vader murmured. His lightsaber hung at his waist. He ignored it, his fingers going nowhere near the weapon. “That’s what the Empire needs: a few more well-trained, domesticated animals.”
“Domesticated? I’ll show you who’s domesticated!” She leapt high, kicking out, and in midthrust somehow bent sideways to kick harder with her other leg.
In a movement preternaturally fast, but which somehow looked almost languid, Vader ducked, reached up, and with one gloved hand lightly tapped her in the middle of her back. A serious thrust catching her in that position could have broken her spine. The Dark Lord’s touch was more of a caress. He was letting her know what he could have done.
Landing in a crouch, a feral expression on her face, she raced at him again, low this time. Her speed was startling: a droid would have been hard-pressed to match her acceleration. She dropped low to the floor and swung her right leg around in a powerful circle sweep. Her intent was to take his legs out from under him.
She might as well have been trying to cut down a bronzewood tree. At the last instant the Dark Lord thrust both hands downward toward the spinning bounty hunter. A profound surge in the Force rippled through the room. Guards posted at a distance in the hallway nearby were nearly knocked off their feet by it. But the strength of the emanation had not been directed at them.
Casually, as if inspecting a new exhibit that had been donated to the Imperial Museum, Vader walked around the now motionless figure on the floor. Aurra Sing lay on her back, unable to move. It was as if a giant weight pressed her down. Seething in impotent rage, she watched the Dark Lord pass through her field of vision and beyond.
She felt, rather than saw, him make a negligent gesture, and she could move again. Sing reached up with one hand to clutch at her throat. Momentarily stilled, the fury that had boiled up within her began to return. She rose to her feet.
Without even looking in her direction, Vader waved diffidently at his visitor. “Enough, assassin. You repeat the fatal error of one who knows but a tiny bit of the dark side.”
Holding herself back with an effort, she stood panting and glaring at him. “And what might that be?”
“You don’t know how to control it. You let it control you. This is the difference between mentor and student. You make good use of what access you do have to the Force, but I fear you will never master it.”
She still held her hands up in a defensive posture. “If you’re going to kill me, stop talking and do it.”
“Kill you?” For the first time, Vader sounded surprised. “Why would I want to kill you? Imperfect as you are, you are still more useful than the vast number of incompetents I deal with on a daily basis. You show courage, skill, determination. Those are not qualities to be wasted, even in one so foolishly headstrong. Why would I kill that which can be helpful to me?”
He adjusted something on the front of his chest, and his voice grew slightly less harsh. “Now then: what progress in your search for the Jedi Jax Pavan?”
Sing’s breathing slowed. Unclenching, her hands dropped to her sides. Relaxing thus left her defenseless, but against Vader it did not seem to matter whether one prepared for battle or not. The outcome was foretold, and she did not need access to the Force to see that.
“I have been making inquiries. Although my reputation is widespread, I’m not personally known on Imperial Center to many of those of whose services I’d normally be making use. It takes time to satisfy underlings that one is who one says one is.” She smiled. “I’ve had to break an assortment of bones and cartilage.”
“All in the service of the Empire,” Vader observed. “Do what you must. Methodology does not concern me. I am only interested in results.”
She nodded. “That’s as I was told.”
“Is there any access you require that is being denied you? A single word from me and—”
She dared to interrupt him. “I know. I’m getting closer. It won’t be long. I can feel it.”
“Through the Force? I didn’t realize you were that close.”
“Not the Force,” she told him. “Instinct. Something different from the Force. Call it feedback from a lifetime of doing this.”
“I know that you live long. May you continue to do so.”
Now she did bow slightly. “To serve you, Lord Vader.”
The helmeted head dipped a bit in return, then drew back. “The dog can learn after all, it would seem. Encouraging. Go now, dog, and return with the bone I sent you to find.”
For a second time she bowed. Then she grinned mirthlessly, turned, and stalked out of the room.
It had not been a conventional meeting, but it had been a useful one. Leaving, she felt she had shown something of herself to the Dark Lord. And any encounter with Darth Vader that did not result in the death or maiming of the visitor could be accounted a successful one.
thirteen
The Ploughtekal Market was probably not the biggest on Imperial Center, but then, it was hard to say for certain, since no one had ever measured its full extent. Furthermore, its physical boundaries and the density of merchants to whom it was home were constantly shifting. Those who did their business there, and often lived there as well, were reluctant to extend much cooperation to the authorities. If they could be censused, they could be taxed.
It was said of Ploughtekal that you could find anything in the galaxy within its hive-like depths. Legal, illegal, unimaginable: it was all there for those who knew how to work the innumerable streets and multiple levels. A large number of shops were not even listed on the electronic registries. You had to find them the old-fashioned way: by walking and asking directions.
Word moved almost as fast by mouth on the streets and avenues of Ploughtekal as it did via holocast. Intel would reach the sector police of an establishment engaged in especially antisocial dealings, and by the time the cools had arrived at the indicated location, the entire business would have pulled up stakes and vanished—only to reappear somewhere else, kilometers away and levels up or down, under a completely different name and appearance. It was a game with hundreds, thousands of continually moving pieces, like a stadium full of dejarik masters all playing on one another’s games simultaneously.
It was, in other words, a place that Den Dhur considered nothing less than designer hell.
The street was narrow and crowded with merchant booths hawking everything from strips of roasted hawk-bat to risqué holos, and made even more crowded by the heterogeneous assortment of sentients appraising these wares. The cacophony of shouts, squawks, hisses, moans, stridulations, and other means of communication made Den fearful of getting an earbleed. Add to that the heady, humid reek of open-air cooking, from Gungan bouillabaisse to Wookiee luau, spices, death sticks, stimsticks, other mind-altering vectors, and, as always, the staggeringly multi-phasic stench of unwashed bodies, and the result was a full-out synesthetic assault. It made his time on Drongar seem pale by comparison.
As he walked Level H-26, Den studied the readout on the compact Multi-Tasking Assistant, or MTA, that he carried. It contained a list of all the components Jax required in order to put together a rudimentary lightsaber. They were the absolute minimum items necessary to construct the elegant and deadly instrument that identified a Jedi. A second list accommodated those components that would make the final construct not just functional, but also worthy of its owner.
The cheap pack that jounced against his back was half full. Certain parts were innocuous enough—focusing lenses and an emitter; a superconductor and a power cell—and therefore comparatively easy to obtain. Despite Ploughtekal’s resources, other components were proving either more difficult or prohibitively expensive. Slowly, methodically, the latter constraint was yielding to the reporter’s contacts or negotiating ability. Even so, Den realized glumly, without the CEC the rest of the components were pretty much useless.
“Hey, watch it, floob!”
The massive male Herglic who had nearly stepped on Den hastened to shift to one side. With a contrite hauum, he gestured his apology. He could easily have crushed the irritated Sullustan with one step, but Herglic tended, as a species, to be embarrassed by their size, which was why Den had felt secure in being rude. Had the near collision been with the pair of supple Cantrosians following immediately behind the Herglic, he would have been less blunt. A quick swipe of one of their paws could have left him with a bad case of Cantrosian-scratch fever.
He sighed and looked at his MTA list again, electronically checking off several more items. Personally, he thought, I think we’ve done pretty good to have gotten all that we have. Especially considering the limitations on time and funds. Between his efforts and the stuff Rhinann had assembled during his earlier quest, Jax should have enough now to at least get started. Den had to admit that, intolerable as the Elomin’s company could often prove, the tusk-crowned humanoid knew his business.
Moving from shop to shop, from contact to contact, he somehow managed to come up with part after part at prices they could afford. But the light-saber’s key component—the CEC—continued to elude him.
“I’m not done yet,” he muttered. There were still a few places deep within the market’s center that he intended to try.
Though it seemed impossible, the crowds actually grew denser as he worked his way ever deeper into the seething, frenetic complex. Typical of any such market, Den knew, but in one the size of Ploughtekal the constant crush could grow wearying, if not actually dangerous, especially for someone whose kind ranked at the lower end of the humanoid size scale. On the other hand, his comparatively diminutive height allowed him to squeeze into places that the representatives of bulkier species could not access. Unfortunately, none of these booths had anything even faintly resembling a CEC for sale. At last he was ready to admit defeat.
With what we’ve managed to acquire and with what he’s already got, Jax can assemble a lightsaber, he thought as he made his way toward the eastern borders of the great market. It just won’t work. The Sullustan’s step was plodding as he neared a marketplace exit. He was worn out from being pushed around or ignored by larger, clumsier beings. Oh well—if he makes it heavy enough, he can always throw it at people.
Just as he was about to exit, however, a flash of something caught his eye. He turned and beheld a kiosk that sold, among many other illegal things, replicas of sector police badges. Den stopped and looked at them thoughtfully. He’d seen phony ID before, and he had to admit the quality of these was quite good. The rank, picture, and shield number seemed to float, crisp and clear, a few millimeters above the badge itself.
The kiosk’s owner, an old and rheumy Toydarian, noticed his interest. Rummaging around beneath the counter, he brought forth another badge, the picture ID of which was a Sullustan. With a grin he held it up. “Eh? Eh? Perfect likeness, is it not? Only four credits—a bargain!”
It wasn’t a perfect likeness, as Den could plainly see. The person in the holo had thinner ears and lips; also, his skin was somewhat lighter in tone. But he also knew that such subtle differences didn’t matter to anyone except another Sullustan. To most sentients, representatives from any species other than their own were all but impossible to tell apart.
Abruptly, he reached for his pocketbook. He had an idea …
The teeming surface of Imperial Center was dotted with innumerable buildings that had been designed primarily to impress. For example, what made the Orvum Stadium unique was not its capability to seat hundreds of thousands of patrons, but the fact that every single seat could be adjusted to accommodate the individual needs of hundreds of different species. Clustered together a short distance away, the Protorian Polygon consisted of five towering spires linked by a completely transparent glassine bubble that contained three gourmet restaurants and a tourist pedway.
Its shape sustained by powerful tractor and pressor fields, the Aquala Tower rose only a modest distance into the sky—but it was composed entirely of water. Nonaquatic visitors could don underwater breathing gear at the top or bottom and swim through multiple levels of real sea life, while citizens from water-breathing worlds could relax and enjoy the scenery without being burdened by specialized hydrorespiratory equipment.
The greatest companies in the galaxy constantly competed to create corporate headquarters that were the most spectacular, the most innovative, and the most recognizable on Imperial Center. Mobolo Machines’ office complex consisted of half a dozen sky-towers in constant slow motion. Demonstrating the proficiency of its product line, Kiskar Repulsorlifts’ headquarters floated exactly five meters off the ground. Anyone could walk underneath the enormous structure and marvel at the power and technology that kept it not only aloft but also in the same exact position, day after day.
Captain Typho stepped out of an airtaxi on the fringe of a structural complex that was not as tall as certain cloudcutters, not as elaborate as most commercial centers, and not as eclectic as the majority of Coruscant’s great entertainment venues. Notwithstanding a deliberate architectural modesty, the buildings that stretched out before him were in their way some of the most impressive on the planet, for they constituted the bureaucratic hives of the Imperial government.
For the headquarters of his civil service divisions, the Emperor had chosen to adapt and modify an existing business complex. Ostensibly this was done to save time and money. The actual purpose was to divert attention from the many interior modifications installed, some of which would have appalled the few long-established citizens’ rights groups still extant under the New Order.
From the outside the group of office structures retained their original innocuous, unprepossessing appearance. Within, they had been customized out of all recognition. In addition to a highly secure and specialized prison designed to temporarily hold dangerous and politically sensitive detainees, there was a complete medcenter intended to provide the best available care to the Imperial staff. Living quarters boasted varying degrees of opulence; the most modern and efficient communications facilities kept the new government in touch with its vast, far-flung member worlds, colonies, and allies. As with the Imperial Palace itself, there were redundant life-support systems capable of sustaining a habitable environment indefinitely. If necessary, the extensive compound could function without any contact with the outside world, which meant that, should the rest of Imperial Center fall into chaos and collapse, the Imperial offices would continue to function.
As he entered, Typho was impressed but not awed. The purpose that drove him, that had brought him here all the way from Naboo, was bigger than any building, more powerful than any threat, and exalted his spirits higher than the crown of any cloudcutter.
Once inside, he slipped into a steady stream of visitors. While the flow was more or less orderly, representatives from a majority of the civilized worlds occasionally jostled and pushed for position. No one came to this place for leisure; everyone was engaged in business of one form or another that required their personal, as opposed to holographic, presence. Typho understood this quite well. His own concern certainly warranted it. Revenge was not a matter best conducted from a distance.
Though the complex was enormous, it was designed to allow visitors and employees to carry out their assignments or complete their work within a day. It had to be that efficient. It wouldn’t do to have outworld supplicants camping out in corridors in the hope of resolving their problems sometime the following days or weeks.
Typho was among the least likely to suffer such a theoretical delay. As an officer and bureaucrat himself back on Naboo, he understood the workings of government complexes. While this one was incomparably bigger than any counterpart on his homeworld, the guidelines by which it operated were similar. Despite the occasional setback or dead end, he had little serious difficulty filling out the required flimsiwork and navigating the facility.
His persistence eventually found him a modest room occupied by a dozen beings seated at workstations. Half of them were human; the rest comprised various species. The middle-aged bureaucrat he eventually found himself before checked his vital data and acknowledged their validity with a squeal of approval.
Typho had encountered Jenet in such positions before. Short and stocky, with rodent-like facial features, prominent teeth, and white hair and facial fur, they were not, from a humanoid perspective, the most attractive of bipeds. But they were hard workers and particularly famed for their near-infallible memories. While the Emperor was well known for his humanocentric policies, he was smart enough to hire the right species for the job. And who better, Typho reflected as he took a seat across from the smallish creature, to serve in a sensitive bureaucratic position where recall of detail was essential?
The Jenet’s low voice was interrupted by a good deal of ancillary huffing and puffing, but his command of Basic was all in all quite admirable.
“So. You are called Typho, a captain of Royal Household security from Naboo.”
“Yes.”
“I am Losh. I have seen pictures of your homeworld. Unsightly, water-ridden place.”
Typho nodded. “Perhaps so, but for sheer global repulsiveness little can compare to Garban.”
At this insult to the planet that gave rise to his species, the Jenet’s whiskers twitched. He was much pleased, and not a little surprised.
“You are familiar with Jenet society?”
“With the basics,” Typho conceded modestly. “As a security officer I have to know galactic protocol. It wouldn’t do to greet someone from the Tau Sakar system, much less Garban itself, with a flowery compliment.”
“Indeed it would not.” The bureaucrat was impressed; visitors who knew and understood that the Jenet traditionally greeted one another with insults were few and far between.
“It’s clear you are who you say you are. Certainly your vitae check out clean.” Caressing a whisker on the left side of his bright pink face, the official studied the information floating in the air before him. “According to the records, this is not your first visit to Imperial Center.”
Again Typho nodded. “I have had the pleasure before, yes.”
“I hardly need tell you there is much to see and do here.” His sigh emerged as a series of short, soft squeaks. “Though as a midlevel functionary, I am fortunate if my family and I can spend more than a week or two each year availing ourselves of such pleasures. What is your purpose here, Captain Typho?”
Affable and welcoming though the interviewer was being, Typho didn’t relax his guard for a minute. The Jenet was merely doing his job in the most efficacious manner possible: Put your guest at ease, set his mind at rest, and then probe for the information you really want.
“I’m no tourist,” Typho told him straightforwardly.
Whiskers jerked. “I guessed as much. Coming to this place does not fit the profile of a sightseer. So, again: what is it you want?”
“Information.”
“What else?” With a casual wave Losh indicated their surroundings. “The Emperor did not cause this complex to be compiled to provide entertainment. This section deals with government travel. You are a government official, albeit of a minor planetary system. Let me guess: you seek particulars regarding the travel of someone from Naboo. Someone who has used government funds to visit Imperial Center on nongovernmental business.”
“No,” Typho told him.
“Ah. Then you are tracking someone who has violated Naboo security and has either fled here, or come seeking to avoid arraignment.”
“Not that, either.” While the bureaucrat’s second guess was much closer to the mark, the captain was still able to respond honestly.
The Jenet’s curiosity was piqued. Since this represented a break from the daily monotony, he engaged more than usual. “Something out of the ordinary, then. Captain, much as I enjoy conversing with you—even though the sight of your ugly face makes me bilious—I still have a daily administrative quota to meet. How can I help you? Be concise.”
“You can use those filthy scavenger’s eyes of yours,” Typho replied politely, “to research the names of visitors to a certain world on a couple of specific dates.”
“Travel details.” Whiskers bobbed. “Simple enough.” Pink fingers hovered in the air, poised in front of the luminescent, insubstantial control images above the desk. “Go on.”
Typho tried not show his nervousness as he provided the parameters. “On the date in question Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo suffered fatal injuries at a mining site on Mustafar. At the time she was under the protection of a Jedi named Anakin Skywalker.” This was where his inquiry could get tricky—and dangerous. “I need to know if the Jedi in question survived and, if so, his possible whereabouts.”
The Jenet’s whiskers stiffened sharply as he dropped his hands away from the floating aura of instrumentation. “The Jedi are all dead. The Emperor has cleared that particular infestation from the galaxy. It is a violation of Imperial law to seek any data on them. As a security officer, you of all people should know that, Captain.”
Typho had anticipated this reaction. “The unexpected and apparently violent death of Senator Amidala, who was much beloved by her people, was a tragedy from which many on Naboo have not yet recovered. As the officer in charge of her personal security, I have a special interest in finalizing the events concerning her passing. Even though you are obviously an official who’s failed his way upward into a position far too complicated for his feeble mind, I’m sure you can understand and sympathize with that.”
“As an official who has to deal daily with intrusive idiots like yourself, I suppose that I can. Sympathizing, however, is not a component of my job description.”
“I’ll take information over sympathy any day,” Typho assured him.
As the official hesitated, Typho tensed and did his best not to show it, knowing that the Jenet could terminate the visit at any moment and send his visitor packing. If that happened, Typho would have to start all over again elsewhere, in a different section with a different bureaucrat. And instant cross-referencing would reveal to a second interviewer that the captain had already been granted a previous session, which meant that he and his request would likely be dismissed out of hand, if he was lucky. If he wasn’t—inwardly, Typho shuddered, although his concern was still about failing Padmé, rather than saving his own hide.
After a long moment, Losh’s fingers began moving again through the instrumentation display floating before him. “I’m not sure why I’m helping you. I’m not required to do so. Researching the travels of Jedi falls far outside my purview.”
“You’re doing it because you’re a lonely, frustrated, obnoxious excuse for an administrator,” Typho told him.
The Jenet’s pink head bobbed, the white hair streaming down his back shifting slightly with the movement. “Or perhaps I’m inspired to take a break from routine by the meaningless ravings of an obviously psychotic offworlder.”
Typho repressed a smile. “Could be.”
Typically, it took longer to input the request than to receive the desired information. “Somewhat surprisingly, there is data in the files relevant to that which you seek. So that the galactic populace may know what end justly befalls common criminals, the detailed fate of each Jedi is noted. Have a look for yourself.” With the sweep of a finger, the Jenet caused a duplicate of the readout he was scanning to appear before the anxious Typho.
His gaze traveled at high speed down the list. Opposite each Jedi’s name were the details of that individual’s passing. Occasionally the words UNVERIFIED, UNKNOWN, or, even more rarely, POSSIBLY STILL EXTANT appeared. To be certain of his conclusions, he made himself read through the entire list, though not all the pertinent details, until he reached the name he sought.
Interestingly, among those listed as extant and POSSIBLY ON IMPERIAL CENTER was a name he had encountered recently: Jax Pavan. That was the Jedi the bounty hunter Aurra Sing had been looking for.
Well, that was Jax Pavan’s problem. The captain’s concerns lay elsewhere.
He read the entry for SKYWALKER, ANAKIN. His heart pulsed as he noted that the Jedi in question had indeed perished on the volcanic world of Mustafar. Though he scanned carefully through every subsequent name, there was no mention of Padmé. Despite his disappointment, he knew that was to be expected. The list recorded the passing of Jedi, not “ordinary” galactic citizens. Such details of Padmé’s death were widely available in the general media, especially on Naboo.
He read through the listing again. There was no mention of what Skywalker had been doing on Mustafar at the time of his death, though Typho already knew that. He was supposed to have been guarding Padmé. More surprisingly, there was no description of his manner of passing: merely that he had met his end on that fiery, inhospitable world.
Typho thought furiously. Skywalker had not been just any Jedi. He had been one of the best, personally driven to protect his ward and exceptionally skilled in the use of the Force. Try as he might, Typho could not imagine who else on Mustafar at the time could have killed Padmé in the strange fashion consistent with the official autopsy.
Suppose Skywalker had indeed killed Padmé, but had somehow subsequently made his escape? But then why would the official report show him as dead? Regardless of whether or not the Jedi had slain Padmé, the Emperor wanted all Jedi dead. No one in officialdom would protect him. If anything, knowing that he had killed Padmé would have made him a perfect example of a traitor for the Empire to hold up.
Assume the opposite, then. Take the official record at face value. Anakin Skywalker was dead. Though his manner of passing was not described, Mustafar, after all, was a place where fiery death awaited at every step. If the Jedi had perished as a consequence of falling into boiling lava or being buried by an eruption, why wouldn’t the record show that? The omission implied that he had died by other means.
By other hands? Typho wondered.
He had seen for himself Skywalker’s skills and mastery of the Force. If natural means were not responsible—and if they were, there was no reason the captain could think of why that should not be reported in the official record—then it suggested a person or persons might be to blame. That made sense. Whoever wanted Padmé dead and had slain her by such ingenious means would understandably have to kill her bodyguard first. Was it possible an individual existed with the power to overcome a Jedi as powerful as Skywalker?
The Emperor himself could have done so, Typho knew. But Padmé’s death had occurred before Palpatine had declared himself, and in any event, Typho couldn’t conceive of any scenario in which her death would have been politically advantageous to Palpatine’s ascension. Who else, then? Another Jedi, perhaps—but why would one Jedi want another dead, not to mention a renowned, respected, and well-loved Senator from Naboo? Who possessed that kind of mastery of the Force, and that kind of raw hatred?
That was when it hit him. That was when it all came together in his mind.
A Sith.
Only one of the Dark Lords commanded enough skill with the Force to overcome a Jedi as strong as Anakin Skywalker. Only one of that malevolent brood could casually dispatch someone as good and pure as Padmé. As to who might want her dead—well, with her outspokenness on behalf of the Republic, the Senator had made plenty of enemies, both within the old Senate and without. Many who favored the transition to the Empire would have been delighted at her passing, including the Sith.
He needed to be sure, of course. At the moment he was only speculating. But the more he thought about it, the more he compared possibilities and alternatives, the more it made sense.
Now he needed a name. An individual. But he could hardly expect the mundane official seated across from him to have access to the movements of the Sith.
“Are you all right?” Losh asked. “Not that I care what happens to a miserable supplicant such as yourself.”
“I’m fine. Just making sure I have the information I need, you useless lump of worm-munch.”
The Jenet’s whiskers inclined forward. “Even though you are here on official business, don’t forget to indulge in the delights of the world-city.” A beady red eye winked. “The lower levels in particular offer certain pleasures not to be found on any other planet. Of course, being mated and with family I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Of course not.” Typho rose from the chair. “Thank you for your time and assistance. I hope you drown tomorrow.”
“And may yours be the bloated corpse that rises from beneath to lift me up.” With a wave of his hand the bureaucratic rodent wiped the floating, glowing information from the air between them. The consultation was at an end.
No one bothered Typho as he wandered the halls. He passed through security scans without being challenged, having left his blaster and the lightsaber he’d taken from Sing in a secure locker before entering the complex. All those individuals in the swirl of beings around him were caught up in their own concerns. Since the Imperial complex was not a place in which to waste precious time, everyone who passed the captain from Naboo assumed he was engaged in important work of his own. Security did not question him. They were looking for those likely to cause a disturbance or enter sections that were off-limits. Security droids stepped or rolled or floated around him, ignoring his presence as he ignored theirs.
How could he find out if a Sith Lord had been on Mustafar at the time of Padmé’s death? If one had been present, it would explain a great deal. He paused long enough to enter an eating establishment. Like any machine, a body functioned better when properly fueled. So he ate and drank, but the food could have been made of tree dust for all the impression it made on his taste buds.
Where and how to begin? To another such a quest might well seem hopeless, but not to Typho. He was experienced and knowledgeable as well as determined. And, having already gained entrance to the Imperial complex, it would be easier to do so next time.
What he needed to do struck him during the last few bites of his meal. A Sith capable of killing a Jedi as strong as Anakin Skywalker would undoubtedly be one the Emperor would keep close to himself—to keep an eye on as much as to make use of him. It might well be possible to learn if any Sith were based at the Imperial complex. Typho had heard it said that the Sith Order had for centuries been pared down to a total of one Master and one apprentice, but he doubted the truth of that—it seemed a perilous way to keep the Order extant. It was far more likely that there were many of them. Far from depressing him, the idea was heartening: it meant that Padmé’s killer might be close at hand, lurking in a corridor or doing the Emperor’s bidding somewhere in the complex around him. The notion stimulated his thoughts and strengthened his resolve.
Tomorrow, he told himself. After a night’s rest he would return in search of information far more dangerous than that which he had sought today. It would not be easy. After all, no one in their right mind deliberately sought to make the acquaintance of a Sith. But Captain Typho was not in his right mind.
He was in love.
PART II
RITES OF PASSAGE
fourteen
There was a reason why the Qarek’k was literally and not just colloquially called a dive in the Neimoidian tongue. To enter, one stepped through a portal off the street and then dropped a full story down to a waiting pedway. Powerful repulsors positioned on either side of the drop slowed visitors one by one, holding them suspended until security equipment mounted overhead and on both sides could run a thorough check on each and every visitant. Those who passed were allowed to drift gently to the ground and enter the establishment. Those who failed, argued, or otherwise tried to make trouble were sent back up to the street.
Weapons were permitted. In this region of under-level Coruscant, it was the unarmed pedestrian who was considered unconventional. The no-nonsense owners of the Qarek’k had no problem whatsoever with customers packing multiple instruments of destruction. Patrons were welcome if they entered weighted down with everything up to and including a tactical nuke. Use a weapon in the establishment, however, and one would find oneself set upon by what was considered the toughest security team in the sector, comprising grizzled veterans of the Clone Wars who had seen and dealt with everything—several times.
Into this sordid den of thieves, killers, and other miscreants dived an especially toothsome-looking female humanoid of indeterminate age, flame-red hair, and snow-white skin. Aurra Sing could easily have emphasized her entrance by executing a couple of forward flips or twists as she let herself be grabbed and slowed by the entryway’s field. However, she saw no reason to exert herself to entertain the Qarek’k’s dissolute clientele. So she just jumped from the street and waited patiently for the security system to examine her and lower her to the floor.
The identification that had been provided for her acknowledged her as a private agent on Imperial business. It was not questioned. Not even the lightsaber, which for anyone not working for Vader would have been cause to summon a platoon of stormtroopers and Inquisitors, raised so much as an eyebrow. Vader’s authority was indeed all-pervasive.
She paused as the bouncer, a Sakiyan, looked her up and down, performing one last manual matching check between her person and her hand-carried ident. The folded hundred-credit note on the underside of the card was adroitly slid up the bald humanoid’s sleeve, and he gestured curtly for her to proceed.
Although her outward expression did not change, Sing smiled to herself as she strode deeper into the labyrinthine warren of rooms. Even with Imperial clearance, it was never a bad idea to get on the good side of the head bouncer.
She allowed herself to be subsumed by the noise from half a dozen different live bands. A storm of lights—some fixed, some ambulatory—bathed the adjoining rooms in every possible color and combination thereof, including the infrared and the ultraviolet. Depending on one’s species, subjecting oneself to too much of one hue or the other could result in a serious burn or minor cancer. The owners assumed no responsibility for such developments. Anyone old enough, bold enough, and sold enough on the delights of the Qarek’k to chance entry did so at their own risk.
She finally found an empty stool in a chamber called the Crimson Redrum. Arms extended wide, the Amanin pubtender gazed up at her. “Something to drink, hard-case?” The hypersonic bubble encasing the bar made conversation possible despite the two competing bands.
Sing was quietly amused. “What makes you think I’m a hard case, flat-head? Don’t I look soft and cuddly to you?”
The Amani’s small red eyes, adapted to seeing in weak light, focused on her. “There is nothing of either about you, humanoid. I have seen your kind in here many times before.”
“You’re perceptive,” she told him. It was a male, she saw by his coloring.
“I’m just a pubtender,” he replied. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Don’t curl yourself into a ball just yet. I’m looking for information, not trouble. I’ll have a Merenzane Gold, on the rocks.”
The pubtender hesitated. “Expensive.”
Sing flashed the expense chit that had been provided her. The Amani frowned. “You pay with a chit. Cash is better.”
“But you’ll make an exception in my case.”
He took the card without further protest. “What kind of rocks would you like?” He gestured behind him at the curved floor-to-ceiling storage bins. “We have everything from pure silicates to rare nonferrous metals.”
“Frozen water will suffice.”
She listened to the two bands that filled the Redrum with wall-to-wall noise. Each comprising multiple species, they seemed to be competing with each other to see who could play not the best music, but the loudest. The Amani was back in less than a minute. She took a sip of the liquid that gurgled in the tall glass and smiled lazily.
“Good. Now—you spoke of cash.” Reaching down to the pouch riding at her waist, she unsealed the top length and let him have a good look before she resealed the pouch. What was visible within caused the Amani’s small eyes to grow almost as large as her own.
“You should not bring so many Imperial credits into a place like this,” he admonished her. “A mere humanoid such as yourself could get seriously hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she replied. “Now—for liquid refreshment, I pay credit. For food, I pay credit. For information—I pay cash.”
The Amani was too short to lean over the bar. Instead, he pushed himself up on his long, dragging arms until his face was level with her own. “What is it you wish to know? What data do you seek?”
“I’m looking for someone. His name is Jax Pavan, though he may be known around here by another name.” She held up a holobase. It immediately expanded to provide a three-dimensional, rotating portrait of the man in question. “He’s a Jedi, though not much of one.”
The Amani’s thick lips curled downward into a rubbery frown. “The Jedi are all slain. Slain by minions of the Empire.” He stared at her a little harder. “Are you a minion of the Empire?”
“I work for myself. Actually, I’m employed directly by Lord Vader.”
The bartender hesitated, stared, then broke out laughing. “A hard case with a sense of humor. That’s rare. Well, it’s no matter of mine who you work for.”
“Glad you appreciate the absurdity of it.” She pocketed the holobase, and the image disappeared. “Maybe he’s not a Jedi. Maybe I was given wrong information. Personally, I don’t care if he’s the Grand Master or a local scrap recycler. I just need to find him.”
“I wish I could help you, hard-case. I have an excellent memory.”
“I know. That’s why your kind are often employed as trackers.” She smiled enticingly. “I appeal to your mercenary nature.”
“I can’t give you information I don’t have. I’d slime myself if it would jog the memory you seek, but there’s just nothing there.” Raising a huge three-fingered hand, he pointed toward the next room, the Green Dystopia. If anything, the music reverberating from within it was even louder than in the Crimson Redrum. “You might try talking to my colleague Calathi, in there.”
The things one does for money, freedom, and a Dark Lord of the Sith, she told herself as she slid off the stool.
Starting toward the next room, she found her way blocked by three patrons. Her first impression was that they had been engaged for some time in a contest to see who could become the most drunk while continuing to remain upright and marginally functional. Her second impression was that it was a three-way tie.
Not as far as the inebriated trio was concerned, however. Obviously hammered enough to cheerfully contemplate miscegenation, they surrounded her. The Zabrak was the most aggressive. A lupine Shistavanen hung back at one angle, while a large, stocky Utai blocked the other direction.
Sing sipped her drink and calmly continued toward the green room. The Zabrak shifted to intercept her. He was tall, muscular, and “soused to his horns,” as the saying had it. He smiled down at her, revealing impressive canines. “Haven’t seen you in here before, little snowflake.”
“Haven’t been in here before. If you’ll excuse me …”
Reaching out, he put a powerful hand on her left shoulder. She glanced at it, turned slightly, and he let it slide off. “I wouldn’t do that again.”
“Why?” The grin grew wider. “Don’t you like my touch?”
“Not particularly. I also don’t like your appearance, your attitude, your breath, and particularly your body odor. You stink.” She eyed the Zabrak’s intoxicated companions. “As a matter of fact, you all stink. But at least there’s variety to your stench.”
The Shistavanen and Utai exchanged amused glances. “You’re a real hard case,” the Utai said.
“Funny, that’s what the pubtender said. Maybe I need to change my hairstyle.”
The Utai scowled. “Maybe you should be more polite,” he suggested.
“That’s right,” the Zabrak agreed. “Be a shame to see a pretty snowflake like you get hurt when all we want is some nice.” He reached out and grabbed her shoulder again.
Aurra Sing felt abruptly, unutterably weary. She had no time for this. But, she reminded herself, keeping a low profile was paramount when on the hunt. She would give them one more chance. “I told you not to do that,” she told the Zabrak. “Move it or lose it.”
The Zabrak leaned in close, his breath an alcoholic miasma. “Give us a kiss.”
No one saw what happened next. They knew it happened because they could see the results, but it had taken place so fast that when questioned later all anyone could recall was two blurs: one of flesh and one of light.
One moment the Zabrak had been leaning in toward Sing. The next he was staggering backward, staring at his left arm, which had been cut through at the elbow with surgical precision by a single sweep of her lightsaber. His hand spasmodically clutched her shoulder for a moment before falling to the floor.
The Zabrak staggered backward until he collapsed on a divan, staring in shock at the cauterized stump of his upper arm. The other two were momentarily paralyzed as well, but the immobility of shock did not last long.
“Get her!” shouted the Utai as he and the heavy Wolfman lunged forward. Vibroblades flashed, aiming to mutilate and maim.
Moments later the Shistavanen’s head was staring at the variegated ceiling, having been separated from his body. The Utai still stood upright, looking bewildered. Then a hair-thin line of red, straight as a laser, materialized down the center of his body, from head to crotch. An instant later the body’s two halves fell neatly in opposite directions.
The Amanin pubtender spoke into a comlink: “Cleanup in Section Seven-B.”
There was not a lot of blood, the lightsaber having cauterized the massive wounds even as they had been inflicted. Having spilled not a drop of her drink in the course of the melee, Aurra Sing calmly deactivated her weapon and turned to regard the wide-eyed Zabrak.
“I’d have a large drink, if I were you,” she suggested. “The shock will wear off soon, and you’ll want to be self-anesthetized by then.” She paused, then added, “But have it somewhere else.”
The Zabrak, clutching the stump of his left arm, stumbled backward and let the crowd—which had scarcely paused in their frenzied dancing to observe the altercation—swallow him up.
Clipping her lightsaber to her belt, Sing turned, walked back to the bar, and placed several credit slips on the counter in front of the Amani.
“I don’t have time to answer questions. Not from your security, nor from sector police. This should cover any awkwardness.”
A three-fingered hand made the money vanish as deftly as any magician. “What awkwardness?”
She smiled thinly, turned, and headed for the room called the Green Dystopia.
fifteen
The quarters they had taken on the forty-fourth level, Quadrant Q-1, had the virtue of anonymity, if little else. The mixed bag of species that inhabited the surrounding resiplexes provided excellent cover. The cul-de-sac was also sufficiently out of the way to allow Dejah to come and go without notice. Once her Nucleon dropped below the fortieth level, the media mynocks who drew income from harassing the bereaved survivors of celebrity casualties tended to lose interest.
While waiting for her arrival, Jax was assembling the components that Rhinann and Den had managed to acquire. On the surface it seemed a pointless endeavor; the result might look like a lightsaber, but its lack of a CEC rendered it little more than a prop. Nevertheless, he was determined to persevere. When and if they managed to acquire an energy crystal, everything else would be complete and in readiness.
Nearby, Den was relaxing with a priviewer. It was a visor and earphones melded into a single unit that wrapped around his head like a too-large high-tech crown that had slipped down over his eyes. Occasionally he would let out a hoot of appreciation or a chuckle of laughter as whatever he was viewing tickled his fancy. Settled on the other side of the central work center, Laranth was cleaning one of her two blasters. The Gray Paladins did not carry their weapons for show; nevertheless, they took pride in having clean and functional ordnance.
In the far corner of the room, Rhinann was dozing, arms folded across his reedy chest. All the walking, talking, and endless negotiations he had engaged in on behalf of Jax had tired him out. He deserved a rest, he had told them, and he was of no mind to aid either the Jedi or the Paladin in their menial pursuits. Verbal as opposed to manual dexterity was his strength. He would save his energy and his efforts for more dignified pursuits, thank you very much.
I-Five stood nearby. He was outwardly immobile, but Jax knew that the droid’s mind was humming away as it perused multiple matters simultaneously. It was something few organics were capable of, because most organic brains couldn’t self-partition.
Jax wondered what topics occupied the droid. By this time he knew better than to ask; he had no desire to grant the metal man any more opportunities to flaunt his maximized self-awareness. The truth of the matter was he was still getting used to the idea himself. The concept of a droid being fully conscious was something he had accepted only reluctantly. It still made him uncomfortable at times to muse upon the ramifications of a truly sentient machine. Before he’d met I-Five, his feelings about a droid’s place in organic society had been the same as everyone else’s: droids were tools, convenient ambulatory mechanisms to be used or discarded as necessity dictated. He would not have thought twice about ordering one to jump into a vat of acid or carving it up for parts if doing so served his purpose on a mission. Droids were expendable and an infinitely renewable resource: if one became defective or was otherwise compromised in any way, it was simply recycled for parts and a new one ordered, at the Temple’s expense. There was never a shortage; to be the head of a production company such as Trang Robotics or Cybot Galactica was like having a license to print credits.
While it was true that some sentients developed feelings of attachment, even affection, for their droids—Master Obi-Wan, he recalled, had been adamant about his astromech accompanying him on missions during the Clone Wars—for the most part people viewed the automatas the same way they might view a more sophisticated version of a bread crisper. Jax certainly hadn’t had occasion to wonder about any inner lives they might have been hiding.
That attitude had changed when he’d met I-Five. He’d been forced to change his opinion not just about the droid, but also about I-Five’s “partner,” Lorn Pavan—the father he had never known.
The droid had told him much about his father’s life, but had been maddeningly vague about the specifics of his death. All Jax had been able to glean was that his father’s fate had been ordained by someone highly echeloned in the Republic—someone who might even have had access to Palpatine himself, back when he had been Supreme Chancellor. I-Five would be no more specific than that, and Jax couldn’t tell if the droid knew nothing more or wouldn’t say anything more, or both. He suspected the last possibility, however. Whatever his father had done must have reverberated considerably through the halls of power back in the waning years of the Republic for the droid to be so closemouthed about it more than two decades later. He had hinted darkly that Lorn and himself, along with a Jedi Padawan named Darsha Assant, had been pursued by an all-but-unstoppable assassin whose sole purpose had been to retrieve a holocube that Lorn had attempted to fence on the black market. Both the Padawan and his father had died, and I-Five had escaped only by luck.
Jax paused in his work, thinking. He’d attempted to learn more about his father’s mysterious end on his own, but he was at best a journeyman slicer, and digging for data that old required far more skill than he possessed. Come to think of it, though, someone with the requisite skill was no farther than the other side of the room.
As if telepathically alerted, Rhinann bestirred himself long enough to check his chrono. “Your lady friend is late.”
Pushing the magnifier up on his forehead, Jax replied, “She’s not my lady friend. And I’m sure she has a good reason for being late. At any rate, it’s not our business.”
“She’s a Zeltron. They’re not known for dependability.” The Elomin closed his eyes again.
The exchange had been loud enough to draw Den’s interest. The Sullustan lifted the priviewer up over his head and set it aside. “It should be at least partly our business, Jax,” he said. Pulling from his pocket a finger-sized unitary, he unfolded its screen with a flick of his wrist. “You want to know why? Take a look at our credit balance.”
“I doubt that organic vision is capable of resolving so tiny a figure,” I-Five said.
Jax gave him a look of displeasure, then turned back to the Sullustan. “How bad is it, Den?”
“Well, it’s not a crisis. We have enough in the account to eat tomorrow. The day after that …”
“I see no problem, then. For me,” the droid said.
“We’ll have to move, too,” Den added.
“I see.” Pulling off the magnifier, Jax set it on the work center. “What will we be able to afford?”
The Sullustan studied the readout on the unitary. “I think there’s a public park over in Sector Nineteen.”
“I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
“It’s not,” Den assured him as he collapsed the screen and pocketed the unitary. “It’s worse.”
“Why didn’t someone tell me before?”
“Someone tried,” Den told him. “Several times. You kept telling me or Rhinann that the Force would provide. Well, now would be a good time to crank it up.”
“We could sell the Far Ranger,” Laranth suggested.
Both Den and Rhinann glared at her. “No way,” the Sullustan said. “That ship’s our only chance to get off this rock. Which I’m still hoping will happen once you two idealists decide to get practical. Because if you don’t, we may wind up living in it.”
“If I may be allowed to venture a suggestion …?” I-Five said.
“Since when have you ever asked permission?” Laranth put aside the blaster she had been working on and started on its mate.
“Dejah Duare,” the droid continued, “is the sole beneficiary of a well-known, well-respected, and, most importantly, well-recompensed deceased artist.” His photoreceptors focused on Jax. “I see no reason why if, prior to her departure, she still wishes us to continue our efforts to locate Volette’s killer, that we should not be paid for them.”
“Hear, hear,” Laranth murmured while checking the emitter of her second blaster.
“A capital suggestion, in both senses of the word,” added Rhinann.
“Works for me,” Den said.
Jax was horrified. “I can’t do that. As a Jedi I’m sworn to help those in need and to assist those who request my aid. I can’t charge for it. Especially not someone in a disturbed emotional state. It’s not ethical.” He spread his arms. “In fact, it’s one step short of bounty hunting. I’d feel like a mercenary again. I swore I’d never again sink that low.”
Den had to kick out with both legs to get off the couch, which had been designed to accommodate much taller species. Approaching Jax, he waved a stubby finger at the reluctant Jedi.
“You do the work, and let the rest of us worry about the metaphysical fallout.” Evidently Jax’s conflict was plain to see, because Den added, not unkindly, “It’s not that we’re asking you to go against any deeply felt personal beliefs, Jax—”
“Yes it is,” I-Five said without hesitation.
Den glared at his mechanical friend. “It’s only that,” he continued to Jax, “no matter how noble your intentions or how worthy what we’re currently doing, there are mundane and uninspiring matters that simply can’t be ignored. Like the rent.”
“And food,” Laranth added.
“Minimal appearances must be maintained,” put in Rhinann.
“All right, all right!” Jax took a deep breath and checked his chrono. “When she gets here I’ll … talk to her.” He let his gaze rove around the room. “If this only involved me, I’d continue to say no. But we’re all in this together, so in this one instance I’ll allow myself to be outvoted.”
“Never underestimate the humanoid affinity for rationalization,” I-Five said.
The reporter turned to the others. “We should each find something else to do when Dejah arrives.” He spoke to all of them, but he was looking at Laranth.
The Twi’lek hesitated, glanced at her unfinished work on the bench, then at Jax. The Jedi was puzzled by that look, which seemed compounded of equal parts amusement and annoyance. She said nothing, however; she merely gathered up the disassembled pieces of her blaster.
The main domicile entryway chose that moment to announce the arrival of a visitor. Its integrated evaluator declared the caller to be unaccompanied, unarmed, and, insofar as could be determined from outward appearances, not a representative of the police or any other branch of unwelcome officialdom.
“We’ll let ourselves out through the secondary exit,” Den informed Jax as he headed for the far side of the communal room. Rhinann followed close behind, together with I-Five. Laranth was the last to leave. She lingered a moment.
“Secure an agreement and fix a suitable retainer,” she told Jax. “Take your time. But not too much time.”
He frowned uncertainly. “I don’t follow your meaning.”
Laranth gave him another bland look, which still seemed somehow annoyed. “What I mean is, we don’t have time to waste.”
“We have plenty of time. The Whiplash hasn’t even scheduled Dejah’s departure yet. They still have to secure passage and—”
“My mistake.” She turned, fast enough to send her lekku whirling, and strode out, head high.
What in the worlds has gotten into her? the Jedi wondered. He had little time to ponder it, however, because a twitch of the Force’s strands reminded him that Dejah was at the door.
When he let her in, she didn’t look around; by now she was familiar with the surroundings. “I’m sorry to ask you to meet us here, but it’s my experience that dwelling in borderline squalor is good for security. I’d rather be safe than comfortable.”
She waved off his apology. “Where’s everyone else? Even your impertinent droid is gone, and he’s usually no more than a meter from your side.”
“Would you rather wait for them to return?”
“No, that’s not necessary.” She smiled, which made him feel slightly uncomfortable. “I’m sure you can fill me in on whatever I need to know.”
Jax felt momentarily at a loss, then drew himself up. This was ridiculous. Master Piell would have considered being alone with a Zeltron of the opposite gender nothing more than a test. After all, he had the Force to counteract her pheromones.
It didn’t seem to be helping all that much, however.
“I need to go over some predeparture details with you,” he explained. “Things you need to do before you wrap up your final affairs, ways to go about them so as not to arouse suspicion, how to terminate any close relationships—that sort of thing.”
“Travel information. Good.”
He hesitated again. “Uh, you might want to take notes.”
“Not necessary. I have a good memory.” She sat, hugging her knees to her chest and giving him her undivided attention.
As he began to recite some of the procedures that would be necessary for her to ensure a safe and anonymous departure from Coruscant, he couldn’t help but be aware of the bodystocking that covered her like a second, lucent skin. He used the Force to deflect the pheromones he could feel pulsing from her, but the visual alone was enough to keep him stumbling over his tongue like an anxious Padawan. Dejah pretended to notice nothing unusual in his behavior, of course. She simply sat, curled up in a supple tangle of arms and legs, and listened attentively. With her empathic talents, however, there was no question but that she was acutely aware of his inner turmoil. As he strode back and forth in front of her, taking care to keep a certain nominal distance, he was positive that he could feel her inner glow of satisfaction, hot as an undamped reactor core.
Eventually he ran out of things to say to her—except, of course, for the one thing he’d been dreading saying since she walked in the door. Despite having reached an agreement with his companions, now that the time had come to propound it, his Jedi training continued to resist.
She stared at him. “Was there something else, Jax?”
“No—yes.” Girding himself in every respect, he sat down beside her. “Dejah, I don’t want to do this. I’ve been trying to think of the best way to ask it of you, the least offensive way to make this request.”
Her eyelids fluttered, and her crimson skin was positively aflame. “I’m Zeltron, Jax. Whatever request you want to make, I’m sure I’ve heard it before.”
“Good. That makes it easier—” He broke off in shock at what the Force showed him behind those eyes. She’d chosen to reveal her thoughts, of that he was sure; no one with her psychic sensibilities could be read so easily.
He stood hastily. “That’s, uh, that’s not what I mean—at all.”
Her expression turned uncertain. “I don’t understand. Then what kind of request are you having trouble making?”
“What I’m trying to say, Dejah, is that we’re about out of funds, and if we’re going to continue to help you, I’m going to have to ask for—a retainer.”
There—he’d managed to get it out, though the request still sounded obscene to him. He looked away. I should have let Den do this, he told himself unhappily. Or Rhinann. Or even I-Five. Asking for money wouldn’t have bothered any of them in the least.
He felt ashamed to look at her, reluctant to use the Force to sense her feelings. How would she react? Would she be hurt? Insulted? Angry?
He forced himself to turn and face her—and saw that her right hand was unsealing her jeweled carry-bag. “How much do you need? Do you want cash, or a credit transfer?”
Relief left him momentarily weak in the knees. She was watching him with a coy smile that seemed to say, There now—that was easy enough, wasn’t it?
Less than an hour after he’d brought her up to date and she’d left, his colleagues rejoined him.
“How’d it go?” Den inquired anxiously. “Did she balk at the request?”
“Yes,” Rhinann wanted to know. “Do we eat well tonight?”
I-Five made a snorting sound with his vocabulator. “It’s always about food with you organics.”
Jax, affecting an air of complete and utter confidence, said, “I am happy to say that, thanks to the gracious and understanding Dejah Duare, we now have an open line of credit through the planetary banking system under two new assumed identities, either of which any of you can now freely access.”
Rhinann’s tusks quivered in gustatory anticipation. “I thank you, Jax. There is nothing worse than being a gourmet in a world of indiscriminate eaters.”
“Except having to listen to one,” Den said. “But seriously, Jax—good work.”
“Yes,” I-Five agreed. “It would have been enough to have secured a promise of token payment. But an unlimited line of credit—your efforts exceed my expectations. I may go so far as to indulge in a logic board tune-up.”
Basking in their praise, Jax noticed that compliments were lacking from one of the group. Having once again taken her seat at the work center, Laranth had resumed her equipment upgrading without a word.
He shrugged. He thought briefly about probing her feelings with the Force, but decided to respect her privacy. If the Paladin had a problem with him, his past experience with her guaranteed that she wouldn’t be reticent to let people know when she was ready.
Still, it did somewhat dampen the celebratory mood …
sixteen
“I’m looking for the Cragmoloid Boulad. I was told you might know where I could find him.”
The Green Nikto sitting in the ticket kiosk of the sleazy holobooth looked Typho deliberately up and down.
“Who teld ye thet?”
“Does it matter?” Courteous and diplomatic most of the time, Typho could be tough when the occasion demanded. Here in the bowels of Coruscant, occasion did more than demand: it positively screamed. “Can you help me or not?”
“Depends.” The Nikto groomed his facial scales with his long claws. “C’n ye pay?”
“I didn’t take you for a philanthropist.” Typho unsealed a pocket and brought out a fistful of credit chits. Avarice replaced some of the disinterest in the Nikto’s large obsidian eyes. He licked his narrow lips.
“How d’ I know ye’re net thee police?”
“Get serious. Do you really think a dreg like you is worth the sector’s time?”
The Nikto cackled, halting only when his laughter degenerated into a hacking cough. Typho made sure to stay well out of respiratory range while waiting for the attack to finish.
A clawed right hand swept the credits from the captain’s grasp. “Twenty-third level,” the Nikto said. “Quadrant D-three, Sector Two-Twelve. Ye didn’t hear eet from me.”
“Hear what?” Typho turned and walked away.
Nighttime downlevel on Coruscant wasn’t all that different from daytime. In the abyssal ferrocrete depths the sunlight hardly ever penetrated to any perceptible degree; the light came from fluorescents, electroluminescence, and other sources. Even so, the combination rarely amounted to more than a perpetual twilight. Down here life surged and pulsed to rhythms unsettling to the average citizen. It was best, Typho had found, to move at a brisk clip, to project a don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Uncertainty, more than anything else, drew the attention of predators and scavengers.
The entrance to the address Typho had been given was on the bottom row of what appeared to be a rundown resiplex. Even though he couldn’t see them, he knew his body was being scanned by a plethora of security devices. If he could see them, he reflected, they wouldn’t be very secure.
“You’re armed,” a voice accused from a hidden speaker.
“Of course I’m armed. What kind of idiot would come to a place like this without being armed?” He hoped the scan had only registered his blaster. The lightsaber was secured in the inside lining of his jacket, along with a small confounder that was supposed to render it invisible to detection.
“The exact extent of your idiocy is yet to be determined.” There was a click, and double doors parted. They were much higher and wider, Typho noted as he entered, than was necessary to accommodate the passage of the largest humanoids on Coruscant.
The female Cragmoloid who met him displayed no weapons. Given her impressive size and bulk, none were needed. “Check your lethal devices, please.”
“Certainly.” Typho had no compunction about handing over his blaster and vibroknife. Not in light of the fact that the female asking for them stood more than three meters tall, massed over two hundred kilos, and could kill him with a blow of one massive fist. It was strange, however, to be frisked by a trunk as well as by hands. Despite their immense size, they traveled over his person with surprising delicacy.
Satisfied that she had relieved the visitor of every instrument of destruction, regardless of size, she stepped back. “Follow me.”
The chamber where she left him was occupied by one other. It spoke to Boulad’s confidence that he would meet alone with a complete stranger. Of course, help was likely only a trumpet away, and while it was one thing to talk oneself into the fixer’s presence, it would be rather more difficult to get out in the event that things did not proceed as intended. The fact that the average adult Cragmoloid had the strength of half a dozen large humanoids was threat enough.
Boulad’s kind were known for their directness. Typho’s host did not disappoint in that regard.
“The fact that you found your way here means that you seek something you cannot find anyplace else.” Typho could feel the deep, sonorous voice vibrate the floor beneath him, heard it echo off the cavernous walls. The entire block of resicubes, he realized, had to be a façade, a hollowed-out shell that formed the Cragmoloids’ lair. This chamber was dimly lit, sparsely furnished, and big enough to house a sky lorry. It also smelled faintly like hay.
He responded to Boulad’s statement. “Your perception flatters you.”
This produced a deep grunt that might have indicated satisfaction, recognition, or perhaps indigestion. Unfamiliar as he was with Cragii punctuation, Typho chose to accept it as encouraging. He gestured behind him.
“Your mate? A niece, perhaps? Attractive as well as competent.”
The Cragmoloid’s tiny eyes opened wider. Typho had chosen his opening well. He knew that the pachy-dermoids would rather discuss clan or relationships than just about anything else, so they spent the next twenty minutes talking family, with the captain letting his host carry most of the conversation. By the time Boulad had finished waxing rhapsodic about his current wife, Typho had been accepted as an honest broker, if not quite a member of the family.
“For one of the feeble trunkless, you are a pleasant exception,” Boulad told him. “Still, it is time that you stated your business.”
“Just so,” Typho agreed. “I seek the disposition of any Sith on a certain world at a specific time.”
Even for the representative of a species that valued honesty and directness above all, Boulad was taken aback. His trunk elevated in surprise. “Why not ask me something easy to obtain, like the Emperor’s personal taste in beverages, or the home of the current mistress of the Senate vice president?”
Typho proceeded to fill in his host on the necessary details. When Boulad had recorded them all on an appliance designed to accommodate his massive digits, he grunted anew.
“All this is a simple matter to research, except for all of it.”
“You understand,” Typho said, “why I couldn’t walk into Imperial Records and ask for a hard copy.”
Boulad’s trunk waved affirmation. “By now there would be little of you left to question. The Emperor does not like anyone prying into such interdicted material, even for something as simple and innocent as travel itineraries. How resourceful of you to find it all by yourself, without any assistance from anyone. Especially anyone like me.”
The captain smiled. “I amaze myself sometimes.”
“And now to the matter of money, which cannot be avoided. For such a dangerous service, at risk of inviting potentially lethal attention, I must charge five thouand credits. If you cannot pay such an amount, then you may utilize the exit, for our business here is done. I respect your manner, but I will not take such a risk for anything less. And if you know the people of Ankus, you know that we do not bargain in such things. Our word is our bond.”
Typho was not a man of unlimited means, by any stretch of the imagination, but he had determined from the beginning of his quest that money could and would be no object. “Very well,” he said, pulling out his coinpurse. “I assume cash is acceptable?”
“Mandatory.” Boulad leaned forward, towering over his guest. “My people have already secured the information you want. At least, as much as was available.”
Typho blinked in surprise as he paid his host. “That was fast.”
“I was curious to know the why and wherefore of what you sought. If you were able to pay for it, so much the better. If not, it was worth researching to see if it might prove valuable to someone else.”
A flicker of fear shot through the captain. If the Sith or any of their minions learned that someone was delving into their travel records … without thinking, he said as much to Boulad.
His host was no Jenet, for whom Typho’s uncertainty would have been a compliment. “You wound me, visitor! I am an honest broker, as are all in my family.” He gestured to his left from where another, somewhat smaller Cragmoloid was joining them. “Including my third son Arlumek, whom I believe has brought the information you requested—and have now paid for, in full.”
While the elder Cragmoloid counted and pocketed his payment, Arlumek placed a small emitter in front of the expectant Typho. Heavy hands manipulated instrumentation, and words appeared in the air between them. They obviously meant nothing to the younger Cragmoloid, who turned away in disinterest.
To Typho, however, they meant a great deal. The strictly prohibited records that the slicer’s family had somehow managed to access indicated that one Darth Sidious had journeyed to Mustafar, was there at the same time as Padmé and Anakin Skywalker, and had returned shortly thereafter.
His mind whirling, Typho excused himself. Now that their mutual business had been concluded, however, Boulad was reluctant to see the human go.
“Stay!” he entreated his visitor. “I would hear more of your excellent family.”
“Sorry.” Typho headed toward the door. “I have pressing business to attend to.”
“A pity,” the jovial Cragmoloid called after him. “If you ever have something similar to trade, you know where to find me.”
Typho spent the rest of the night wandering the underlevels, his thoughts churning. Twice he was approached by footpads, but a glance at his face was enough to convince them that easier pickings lay elsewhere than on the corpus of the half-crazed human.
Padmé, Padmé, he whispered to himself. Retribution is at hand. Retribution and justice. I know now who killed you.
Like any puzzle, it was simple to solve once you had all the pieces. Who could have penetrated her security on Mustafar? Who could have slain the Senator’s resourceful, determined bodyguard and suffered dearly in the fight that would surely have followed any attempt to harm her? Anakin Skywalker would not have gone down easily. Yes, the answer was clear now.
Darth Vader had killed them both.
Therefore, Vader must die.
He wasn’t worried about getting close enough to the Dark Lord to finish him, even though he knew that one as adept in the Force as Vader surely would detect any threat. Typho knew from his own work as a specialist in security that, given sufficient knowledge, determination, and ability, coupled with a disregard for his own life, an assassin could get to any public figure. A soldier such as himself had both of those assets. Early in his quest he had realized that to avenge Padmé, it was reasonable to assume he would have to sacrifice his own life, and he was fully prepared to do so.
The problem lay in getting physically close enough to Vader to strike. What would draw Vader away from the security that undoubtedly surrounded him? What might induce the Dark Lord to forgo his usual caution and meet alone with an unfamiliar intermediary? As aide to the Emperor, Vader needed nothing. That didn’t mean he was devoid of desire, of course. But what could such an incarnation of evil want?
Abruptly, he remembered what the bounty hunter Aurra Sing had said during their confrontation in the ruins of the Jedi Temple: “On behalf of Lord Vader I was hoping to find evidence here of a Jedi named Jax Pavan.”
Vader was looking for a surviving Jedi named Pavan. And Typho recalled seeing the name Jax Pavan listed on the Imperial administration complex readout as being possibly still alive.
So the Dark Lord wanted this particular surviving Jedi badly enough to send a bounty hunter as celebrated as the relentless Aurra Sing after him. She had been searching for him locally, in the ruins of the Jedi Temple. Which meant that, unless the bounty hunter was way off the mark—not likely, given her reputation—Jax Pavan was somewhere on Coruscant. Not only on Coruscant, but somewhere nearby.
That was it. That was the solution. Jax Pavan would serve as the bait to bring Darth Vader within killing range. How precisely Typho was going to carry out the assassination was something he still had to plan, but he had no doubt a means could be managed. Having spent his entire professional life learning how to keep people from being killed had taught him how best they could be slain.
No question about it: Darth Vader was going to die. Padmé Amidala would be avenged and so would Anakin Skywalker. But before he could begin to put the final plan in motion, there was one more thing he had to do.
He had to find Jax Pavan.
seventeen
It seemed to Jax that no matter how hard they worked, they couldn’t get a break.
It wasn’t as if no one on the streets had heard of Ves Volette. Ever since the devastation that had been wrought on his homeworld, every prominent Caamasi on Imperial Center had been fodder for media interviews, commentary, and a good deal of tsk-tsk gossip. The violent death of one as famous as Volette made his name even more widespread.
But this was Imperial Center, the world-city, home to billions upon billions and workplace to billions more. Here, the murder of an artist, no matter how well known, was minor news at best. If not for the Caamasi connection, it would have required a dedicated search by those with a particular interest in such matters to determine that it had even occurred.
Jax and his friends had performed such a search, and come up devoid of clues. Ideas they had in plenty; the trouble was, none of them were panning out. The Jedi’s only consolation was that the sector police were no nearer solving the crime than he was. Of course, had Prefect Pol Haus made it a priority and devoted all his resources to its resolution, his department doubtless would have made better progress. But the prefect’s bailiwick included dozens of levels, thousands of buildings, and more species than Jax could name. The murders alone, considered apart from all other violent crimes, were backlogged by years.
At least, Jax thought, there are five of us to focus on a single crime. That was encouraging. Just not very much. Deprived of the resources of a modern police department, all they had to go on were the answers to the several questions they had deployed among contacts who, with luck, were in the know. Thus far these had proved erroneous, futile, or leads to dead ends. Jax dreaded every communication with the disheartened Dejah Duare, because each time he was forced to report the same lack of progress. They were getting nowhere, and his feeling of guilt only increased every time he deposited the Zeltron’s money into their communal account.
They were bound to eventually learn something worthwhile, he told himself, if only through the virtue of sheer persistence.
For the most part, his colleagues went about their assignments with minimum complaints, but without an overabundance of enthusiasm. He was in particular concerned about Laranth, who seemed to be growing more and more withdrawn. The Twi’lek had always been moody, but even Rhinann, who wasn’t exactly a draft of fresh oxy at his best, had had occasion to remark on her state. She had, over the last few days, taken to tucking her lekku stump behind its mate, instead of letting it hang freely as she used to. That meant something, Jax was sure. He just didn’t know what. Also, he noticed that when she spoke to him it was always in brief, curt syllables, never stating or asking more than was absolutely necessary.
Den carried out his tasks with crisp efficiency, but without noticeable enthusiasm. And instead of assisting his companions, I-Five had taken to spending periods of time uplinked to a HoloNet grid—at considerable expense. When Jax had asked his purpose, the droid had replied, “You’re not getting many results with your tactics, so I thought I’d try some things on my own, at a more reasonable dataspeed rate. Frankly, watching you organics laboriously process information is like watching supercooled hydrogen flow.”
“Anything worthwhile to report?”
“Not yet.”
There came at last a day when it seemed that their luck might change. A bored Rhinann received a communication from a local police outpost, which he duly relayed to Jax.
“Excellent,” the Jedi said. “Something from Haus’s people, at last.” He searched the Elomin’s dour face. “What is it? Have they finally picked up a viable suspect? Did someone actually confess? Or is it a good lead they feel free to share with us?”
“None of those.” Rhinann handed Jax a copy. “Read it if you wish. I’ll spare you the details. The gist is that one of us needs to go to sector police subpost one eighty-six to bail out a certain Sullustan named Den Dhur. Unless—and this is the course of action I personally recommend—you would rather he remain in custody.”
Laranth was at the work center repairing a comm unit. She didn’t speak or look up. Even Den’s longtime companion I-Five did not break whatever silent cybernetic conversation he was involved in to voice his opinion.
Jax put the hard copy aside. No point in reading it; the meticulous former bureaucrat would, as he said, already have read and analyzed every aspect of the official document, if only to alleviate his boredom. “What charge are they holding him on?”
“Impersonating a police officer. But not to worry—I’m sure a word or two from your close personal friend the prefect will see him back on the street within minutes.”
“I suppose we can’t do anything via comm channels?”
“No. If it’s to be done at all, his release must be realized in person. I nominate you.”
Jax gave him a look of annoyance, an effort that was wasted since the Elomin had already turned away. The Jedi turned to I-Five. “You want to come with me? There might be details I’ll need to quickcheck.” But the droid, lost in the maze of cybernetic data processing, did not respond. Jax shrugged. “Guess I’ll go by myself.”
As he started for the door, Laranth looked at him. “Come back to us,” she said to him. Encouraged by her tone, he paused and looked back.
“Are you saying you’d miss me if I didn’t?”
“No,” she replied, utterly deadpan. “I’m saying that we don’t have sufficient funds to bail out two of you, and I don’t want to have to decide which of you goes free.”
* * *
Ennui had its uses, Jax decided as he and Den exited the heavily armored, windowless front of the police subpost. It was a state of being that crossed species lines. It was as good a reason as any why the cools had walked (or, in one case, slimed) through the necessary interviews and the hectares of flimsiwork that had eventually allowed the Jedi to extricate the Sullustan from custody. The bail that had been required to accomplish Den’s release was as good as forfeited, he knew, since Den had no intention of reporting for trial on the date set.
“What were you thinking?” he asked as they made their way down the Level 14 street, heading for the nearest public transport.
“I was looking for a way to get some information out of a certain Vernol—a real mopakhead named Shulf’aa. He’s a merchant over in—”
“We’ve spoken with dozens of merchants, all to no avail.”
“Ah, but not in the capacity of an investigating police officer.”
Jax looked at him. “Tell me you learned something.”
“Shulf’aa’s an art dealer.”
Some of Jax’s enthusiasm faded. “Let me guess: he owns some of Ves Volette’s sculptures.”
“Two pieces, to be precise,” Den elaborated. “They’re still in one of his several galleries, because the artist’s price has gone way, way up since his death. And each time it goes up, Shulf’aa raises his asking price. It’s a fairly straightforward piece of commercial brinkmanship. He keeps hoping that one day a buyer will pay at the top of the asking bid.
“But that’s not what I found especially interesting.”
“He told you something he didn’t tell the police?”
“He told me something, in my transitory guise as a police representative, that he hasn’t had a chance to tell Haus and his goons, because they hadn’t asked him yet. It seems that the two Volette light sculptures Shulf’aa acquired didn’t come to him through normal, that is to say legal, channels.”
“They were stolen?”
Den was enjoying his moment of triumph. “Less than a year ago.”
Jax said slowly, “Dejah never said anything about that.”
“Why should she?” the Sullustan pointed out. “We didn’t ask her.
“Anyway, so I pressed Shulf’aa, threatened to take him in for attempting to vend stolen goods, and he offered me a bribe to keep quiet about the whole matter. I told him that I would—but that he could keep his money, in return for the name of the individual who provided him with the goods.”
“Which is?”
“Spa Fon. A Nuknog fence and extortionist.”
Jax thought about it. Even shorter than Sullustans, the typical Nuknog would barely come up to the Jedi’s waist. As a species they defined the concept of looking out for number one; Nuknogs stuck their necks out for no one. Since their necks were longer than their legs, this was probably a good idea. They were cunning, greedy, and totally amoral, as well as being deft manipulators with sharp eyesight and keen hearing. Such a being would make a superior thief—provided he didn’t have to run too fast. Jax could certainly envision one stalking and ultimately burglarizing an artistic member of a trusting species such as the Caamasi.
“It gets better,” Den continued. “Fon’s local.”
Jax grinned at the Sullustan. “I take back everything I’ve said about you, Den.”
“What have you been saying about me? Never mind, I’m sure it can’t be any worse than what I-Five says about me.”
“I even take back everything he says about you. Thanks to your imaginative stunt, we’ve got more than a clue—we have a suspect. What’s the address?”
Den rolled off a street name and number. Jax overlaid the information on a mental picture of the immediate region of Coruscant. He was not surprised to find that the address was nearby. Most thieves dwell in close proximity to their victims. It simplifies transportation.
“Let’s go have a little chat with this Spa Fon.”
eighteen
The address the batrachian art broker had reluctantly revealed to Den was, surprisingly, located on the 42nd Level, in a neighborhood that could at least lay claim to potential gentrification. Which was to say that one was marginally less likely to be mugged and robbed there on a dark night than on many of the innumerable levels below. Nevertheless, Jax and Den did not relax as they exited the transport and made their way on foot to the complex where, according to the information Den had been given, the Nuknog made his business as well as his home.
This portion of Level 42 was infused with photonics, so that wired or radiant lighting was not required. Shopfronts flaunted their goods without the usual security bars or alarm beams, and the guards out front actually wore uniforms instead of just harsh expressions and weapons. It wasn’t the Manarai Hills, not by the length of a comet’s tail, but it was considerably more upmarket than either of them had anticipated. Business must be good, Jax mused.
The address given to Den was almost comically nondescript—so much so that it was impossible to tell whether they were looking at the front of a residence or a business. There were no windows, no other doors, not even any visible vid pickups: just a floor-to-roof rectangle of dull gray carbonite composite with a number floating half a centimeter to one side of the center.
Jax knocked loudly. The response time was long enough to make him think that no one had heard. But as he raised his fist to pound again, a portal appeared in the center of the gray wall, revealing a Lonjair standing there. Barely half a meter tall, skinny and indigo in hue, it regarded them out of four bright turquoise eyes beneath a single tuft of pale blue hair that rose from the crest of its skull.
Jax had never seen a Lonjair before. There weren’t a lot of them in this part of the galaxy. Normally shy and species-centered, they tended to keep to themselves in three closely packed systems far out on the South Arm. Like every other civilized species, they had representation on Imperial Center, but to see one in private service was unusual. Perhaps Spa Fon, being of modest stature, preferred servants even less physically imposing than himself. Certainly the Lonjair’s high, squeaky voice was not exactly daunting.
“Yeh geets aftrah beedness wi’ Spah Fhoon?”
Den stepped forward. “We do.”
The Lonjair looked the Sullustan up and down. “Yeh dawn’t lahks d’sarht.”
Jax said, “Does the redoubtable Spa Fon judge business acumen by appearance?”
In quick, smooth succession, one after the other, four eyes blinked at the Jedi. “I aftrah beh nahdin’ nahmes.”
Jax supplied two, making them up on the fly and hoping his companion would remember his. Den’s previous profession had taught him to retain minutiae, so the Jedi wasn’t too worried.
The Lonjair instructed them to wait, and disappeared into a hallway. He wasn’t gone long; when he returned, he ushered them in with a gesture.
As they entered, Den whispered to Jax, “Don’t you find it peculiar that Spa Fon didn’t have his servant ask us our business, or have you disarm?”
“Everyone has a different modus. Sometimes it’s defined by tradition and not logic. If nothing else, it indicates that Fon isn’t afraid of us.”
Den nodded in the direction of their diminutive guide. “Why should he be, with a bodyguard like that?”
Spa Fon was waiting for them in a chamber that was, thankfully, high enough to allow Jax to stand erect. Whether the Nuknog had arranged it out of courtesy to customers and contacts bigger than himself or whether it simply reflected the existing architecture was open to question.
Spa Fon sat on a thick yellow cushion, his small blue servant taking up a stance beside him. Fon’s hospitality might include a ceiling of reasonable height, but it evidently did not extend to furniture. His visitors were obliged to either stand or make use of similar cushions.
Den dropped gratefully onto one of the pillows. It took Jax a moment to fold his longer legs beneath him. The position brought back a quick flash of memory: he felt as if he were back in beginning levitation class, trying to absorb the teachings of Master Yerem. The sharp jab of longing for such simpler times surprised him with its intensity.
Impatient, as were most of his kind, Spa Fon scowled at them. “Erppah tells me you’re here on business. I don’t recognize either of you. Give me a reference or I’ll have you thrown out.” At this, the Lonjair tilted back his head and assumed an air of unmistakable haughtiness.
“Relax.” Den made a soothing gesture. “We’re here on the recommendation of Shulf’aa the Vernol.”
“Ah! That sly slink.” The Nuknog let out a sniff of approval. “What’s old wart-face up to?”
“Oh, the usual,” Jax responded casually. “Business is good. In fact, we were told that when we met up with you, we were to solicit additional stock on his behalf.”
The high-ridged head bobbed appreciatively. “Such stash as Shulf’aa requires is not easy to come by. Exclusive goods are as well guarded as they are regarded by his customers. But tell him I will see what I can do. Now then”—he shifted his lumpy backside on the luxurious cushion—“what brings you to me, specifically?”
Den looked at Jax, who nodded encouragingly. The Sullustan turned back to their host. “You provided Shulf’aa with two Ves Volette originals. He’d like more.”
The Nuknog rolled his eyes in opposite directions. “I bet he would, the old bug eater. Does he think Volettes are like shafts of wandering sunlight, to be gathered freely with a photon net? Since the artist was killed …”
It was the opening Jax had been waiting for. Casually, offhandedly, he said, “Yes, that was a gifted bit of work on your part. I’m curious as to how you managed it.”
“Managed it?” The Nuknog’s tone took an abrupt turn toward the unpleasant. Beside him, the Lonjair stiffened. “I managed no such thing. Why would you accuse me of such an act?”
“Well, it’s intuitively obvious,” Den said. “You stole from the artist two of his works, which you then flogged to Shulf’aa at considerable profit. So you tried it again. But this time Volette had prepared for a similar break-in. Or perhaps your timing was bad and you encountered him by accident. In the ensuing struggle, you killed him. Not that we care.”
Spa Fon glanced at the Lonjair, who blinked in response. When the Nuknog turned back to his guests, it was clear from the narrowing of his eyes that he now saw them in a new and not nearly as favorable light. “I think that you do care, very much. I think maybe in fact that you’re police, here to try to get me to confess to a crime I didn’t commit because you can’t solve it any other way.”
“We’re not police,” Jax began honestly. “We’re—”
“And,” the Nuknog interrupted, “I think it’s time for you to leave.” Raising a reddish, bony arm, their host gestured.
The curtain covering the back wall parted, and a shape emerged. As it stepped into the room behind Spa Fon, Jax recognized the species—Cathar. Feline in appearance, covered in thick gold to yellow-brown fur, and clad in a leather vest and kilt, it stood much taller than him and probably massed three times his weight. Beneath the fur, Jax could see, was mostly muscle.
“Well,” Den said briskly, edging backward toward the exit, “Obviously you have other appointments, so we’ll just be—”
Den froze as the Cathar took a step forward. On his head, between the pointed ears, he wore a diadem of silvery metal fronted by a single mangana aqua cabochon. That meant something in Cathar culture, Jax knew. He just couldn’t remember what.
He took a deep breath. “There’s no need for this, Spa Fon. We’re all friends here.”
The Nuknog glared at him. “Friends do not accuse friends of murder.”
“I’m sure it was an accident. It was his sculptures you wanted, not his life.” Smiling broadly, the Jedi spread his arms wide. “Hey, there’s no shame in admitting to an accident.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” replied Fon. “So you’ll experience no hard feelings over the accident that is about to befall you both now.”
The Cathar approached Jax, ignoring Den. “I am Sele,” he growled. “I will pull out your tibia and use it to pick my teeth.” Snarling, the leader of the Nuknog’s bodyguard exposed sharp, white canines.
“Is this any way to treat customers?” As Jax took a step backward, his right hand slid inconspicuously to his waist. “You can’t make deals in a hostile atmosphere. Why don’t we all take a breath and—”
Letting out a roar that shook the room, Sele reached for Jax with one huge paw. Though the Cathar was faster than one might expect for a creature of such bulk, Jax was considerably more nimble. Dodging to his left, he drew and activated the Velmorian flamesword in a single motion.
The Cathar paused a moment at this unexpected move; he was, however, completely confident in his ability to subdue any hostile interlopers. Given his size and strength, it was an assurance not misplaced.
But he had, in all probability, never faced a Jedi before.
Sele drew a poniard as long and heavy as the Jedi’s leg. Ducking beneath a swing powerful enough to decapitate a reek, Jax leaned forward in a long thrust that sent the tip of the flamesword through the Cathar’s fur and a centimeter deep into his thigh. Howling, the bodyguard stepped back and swatted at the smoke rising from his singed fur. When he looked up again, his expression was by itself enough to paralyze a typical opponent.
Now I remember the significance of the headband, Jax thought. It signifies him as the mightiest warrior of his clan. It figures.
Rushing forward, Sele brought the weighty blade of the poniard down in a swipe that would have cut the Jedi in half from crown to crotch—had it landed, which it did not. Dodging right this time, Jax feinted with the flamesword. His adversary sidestepped left; Jax whirled, leapt with the Force’s aid, and brought the Velmorian weapon down. Flinching, Sele managed to block the blow, but the overflow from the sword seared a black streak across his right shoulder. For the second time the Cathar let out a howl of pain.
Though he had lightly wounded his opponent twice, the Jedi knew that Sele had to land only one of his substantial blows to win the fight. He continued his strategy, using the Force to keep him just out of his foe’s reach while letting the laws of physics work in his favor. At his mass and size, there was simply no way the Cathar could move as quickly or as nimbly as Jax, even without the Force’s aid.
At last, smoldering like a house afire from more than a dozen slashing wounds inflicted by Jax’s flamesword, Sele had no choice but to acquiesce to his opponent. The hulking creature bent one leg and bowed his head. He laid the poniard on the floor between them. “By the rules of the Blood Hunt,” he said in a throaty growl, “I surrender to you all that I own and all that I am.”
“Accepted.” Breathing hard, Jax turned to face the still-seated and now obviously stunned figure of Spa Fon. The Lonjair was nowhere to be seen. “Bad business,” Jax said. “Something like this could ruin your reputation if word got out.” The fence didn’t reply; he just sat and stared. “Don’t you agree, Den?” Jax continued. “Den?”
Turning away from the seemingly paralyzed Nuknog, Jax searched the room with his gaze and the Force. Where was Den?
“Interesting thing, reputations. They’re so often undeserved.”
Stepping from behind the same dividing curtain that had earlier revealed the now chastised bodyguard, the Sullustan rejoined his companion. Squirming beneath his right arm but failing to break free was the Lonjair. With a flourish, Den dumped him in front of the Jedi.
“My friend, meet the real Spa Fon.”
Jax looked from their supposed host down to the slightly built Lonjair. “You’re Spa Fon?”
“Don’t hurt me!” the Lonjair whimpered. Black spots of panic had broken out all over his body. His four eyes were rolling in so many directions at once that looking at them made Jax dizzy.
“I’m just a simple dealer in wanted goods,” the bona fide Spa Fon whined. “I take but I don’t harm. Don’t hit me, please!” Jax noticed that the thick patois the Lonjair had affected earlier had been replaced by perfectly understandable Basic. Off to the side, Sele growled something unflattering under his breath. The unabashed display of cowardice on the part of his former employer forced the Cathar to look away lest he share in the Lonjair’s shame.
Den gestured toward Jax. “My friend spoke the truth: we’re not police. We’re independent contractors, doing a job. Except we don’t hide behind a disguised droid.” He looked contemptuously back at the bogus Nuknog. “Now, for the last time—how and why did you murder the artist Ves Volette?”
Four desperate eyes goggled up at the Sullustan and the Jedi. “I didn’t, I didn’t! Not I, nor any of my people! Sure, I wanted more of his light sculptures. They’re quick and easy money. But I swear, I steal but I don’t kill!”
Jax leaned forward and reached out. The Force that he perceived as linear extensions of himself, as threads of purposeful intangibility, touched the pitiful creature lying before him. It took only a moment. “He’s telling the truth.”
* * *
“What now?” Den asked as they headed back toward the terminal.
“Back to our place,” Jax said. “I have Rhinann engaged in some research on an unrelated matter that I want to check on.”
Den shrugged. “Whatever.” He checked his chrono. “Just as well—it’s almost happy hour.”
nineteen
Rhinann sat before his access console, pondering his next action.
It had seemed a simple enough appeal from Jax: find out everything still extant about his father, Lorn Pavan, a small-time information broker, dealer in stolen goods, and, before that, clerical assistant employed by the Jedi Temple. All of this two decades and more in the past. A straightforward request for anyone save one of the Elomin, who were accustomed to seeing labyrinthine complexities and subterfuge beneath the surface of anything that seemed initially innocent. The fact that Jax had also enjoined him not to speak of this task to I-Five only added to Rhinann’s suspicion. He had made it seem casual enough, like an afterthought—“Oh, and by the way …”—but his studied insouciance only made Rhinann the more wary of a hidden agenda. For an Elomin, the concern was never about being too paranoid—it was about being paranoid enough.
“Open channel,” he murmured to the console. The holoproj responded by showing him the gateway to the HoloNet. Rhinann interlaced his fingers and pushed his palms out, limbering up his digits and cracking his knuckles. Then he bent over the instrumentation projection.
Five hours later he pushed back his formfit chair and stretched, feeling the muscles of his rhachis reluctantly unkink. He was too deep in thought to be aware of the trilling sound made by the passage of his breath over his vibrating tusks.
There was much to think about.
What he’d managed to put together was fascinating. Jax’s father had been a minor-level accountant and file clerk for the Jedi until his two-year-old son had been found to have higher-than-normal midi-chlorian levels. The elder Pavan had been approached by representatives of the Council, who’d urged that young Jax be taken into the Temple as a Padawan.
It was, Rhinann knew, considered quite an honor to have one’s child offered an opportunity to become a Jedi Knight. Even though it meant giving up that child forever to the cloistered corridors of the Order, few parents turned down the Jedi, because it also meant a secure, honorable, and purposeful life for their offspring, which was something all parents wanted.
Lorn and his wife, Siena, had resisted, however. Though not rich, they were by no means destitute, and the thought of giving up their only child, even though it might be deemed in his best interests, horrified them.
Reports as to what happened next were conflicting. Lorn had either quit his job or been let go, and the child Jax had been either taken by or given freely to the Order—although a grievance, filed by the parents, was on the public record accusing the Jedi of what amounted to kidnapping. Rhinann got the impression that there had been collusion in high places to bury the story, even before Lorn’s name was linked to the missing Neimoidian holocron. In any event, nothing had come of the grievance. Siena Pavan had left her husband not long after, and Lorn had begun a long downward spiral, literally as well as figuratively, that had eventually deposited him on the mean streets of Coruscant’s underworld. Here he had met the protocol droid I-Five, and the two had begun their singular partnership.
All this was public record—or had been before the data purge of anything having to do with the Jedi. Even so, it had been relatively easy to suss out. The next stage of Lorn’s saga, however, had been systematically and thoroughly purged. The shunting, decryption, and maneuvering around countless pyrowalls had taken much time and patience. Rhinann had painstakingly applied enhancement and reconstruction of the various data bins, some of which had been removed from the vaults, leaving only quantum residual traces. At some points he’d had to rely on nodal seeker algorithms to reconstruct and best-guess the graph probabilities of the data conduits. It hadn’t been easy; obviously the story he was trying so scrupulously to piece together had been thoroughly scrubbed, by orders from someone very much on high. He’d had to move cautiously indeed to avoid the myriad alarms, trip wires, and deadfalls that lay in wait around every virtual corner, and when he’d finally disengaged from the hunt, the story was still by and large piecemeal.
The essence of it was simple enough—Lorn Pavan and his droid partner had come into possession of a data holocron containing intel concerning the Neimoidian trade embargo of the planet Naboo that had occurred twenty-three years previous. Rhinann wasn’t able to ascertain the exact nature of the intel, but it was obviously severely compromising to at least one highly placed government official, if not more. In response to this, a death mark was issued on Pavan and, by extension, I-Five.
So far, his extensive and exhaustive reconstruction of past events had yielded little that hadn’t already been vouchsafed by I-Five. What Jax was most curious to know was the identity of the mysterious assassin, as well as his employer. These data were buried the deepest, and took the most effort to exhume.
“I found nothing but rumor, essentially,” he told Jax later. “The Imperial Security Bureau categorically condemns all such speculation as innuendo and calumny, and the slightest suspicion of illegal interest is enough to warrant an investigation by the Inquisitorius. My slicing past their pyrowalls did not activate any alarms, which is how I intend to keep it. What I have discovered is everything I can get without putting us all at great risk. Don’t ask me to investigate further; I won’t chance a cerebral meltdown for you or anyone.
“I will tell you this once, and then I intend to forget it. Make of it what you will, but know that you didn’t learn it from me. It is, at best, hearsay.
“A fragment of a sector police communiqué, dated, as closely as I can determine, approximately eighteen years ago, from the time of the Naboo trade embargo, mentions the death of a Hutt nightclub owner and local racketeer, along with several of his minions, at the hands of a Zabrak assassin. The killer’s targets were apparently a human male, most likely of Corellian or Alderaanian origin, and a protocol droid.”
“I-Five and my father,” Jax murmured.
“Almost certainly,” Rhinann agreed. “They escaped, and were pursued by the Zabrak.”
“That correlates with what I-Five told me. The thing he refuses to specify is the assassin’s identity.”
“If my suspicions are correct,” the Elomin said, “he had a good reason for not doing so.” He paused.
“Tell me,” Jax said. He felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rising in anticipation.
Rhinann said, “The weapon used by the Zabrak was a double-bladed lightsaber. A red lightsaber.”
Jax stared at him. “A Sith?”
The Elomin regarded him impassively. “You tell me.”
“But—” Jax felt his mind whirling. According to Temple lore, a Sith Lord’s lightsaber was always red, constructed by following an ancient, secret formula. It had been thus ever since Darth Bane had instituted the Rule of Two, more than a thousand years ago. In addition, the Jedi had traditionally eschewed the use of double-bladed lightsabers. The style and color of the Zabrak’s weapon, therefore, all but guaranteed his identity to be that of a Sith.
His father had been killed by a Sith. And I-Five had known this.
twenty
When they returned to Poloda Place, Den immediately noticed that I-Five was still jacked into the HoloNet. Plugged in, jacked in, turned on, wired up: however an organic chose to describe the condition, it was the mechmind state of oneness with other artificial intelligences. Den knew that, while in that state, the droid could exchange information instantly, without having to first translate it to Basic and then back again. He could receive replies at the same speed, instead of waiting for the cybernetic equivalent of hours for an organic to finish a couple of sentences.
It did no good, the droid had told him more than once, to try to explain such things to organics. Even those with whom he had surrounded himself, who were smarter and more empathic than most, could at best only nod courteously and declare their understanding—when in reality it was plain they understood nothing, and that their comprehension was irredeemably restricted by the limitations imposed on their thought processes by the very nature of their protein-based synaptic connections. He gave them credit for trying, though—especially Den, who, like most of his kind, was sharp of mind as well as tongue.
Jax immediately met with Rhinann, and the two of them disappeared into an antechamber to talk. A few moments later Jax reentered the room, his expression grim. He crossed to the wall where the droid was jacked into the interface. “I-Five,” he said tightly, “we need to talk.”
Something in his tone made Den take notice. It also got through to I-Five. The droid removed his digit from the interface socket and turned to face Jax.
The Jedi glanced at Laranth and Den. “Can we have the room, please?”
Laranth nodded and left. On the way out she grabbed Den by the shoulder. “Come on,” she said. Den thought briefly about resisting, but only briefly; the Twi’lek was much stronger than he was.
“No fair,” he protested feebly. “If this is about the case, shouldn’t we be there, too?”
“It’s not about the case,” Laranth said.
“How can you know?”
“You’re a reporter,” she said. “How can you not?”
I-Five said mildly, “How may I help you, Jax?”
Jax repressed an urge to grab and shake the droid, knowing that it would do no good. “The man who killed my father was a Sith. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What good would it have done?”
“What harm would it have done? As a Jedi in particular, I had a right to know.”
“And now that you know,” the droid said with maddening complacency, “what do you plan to do?”
“Well, I—” Jax paused, realizing that he’d formed no real course of action. “I’ll find out if this Sith still lives,” he said, somewhat lamely, “and—”
“And no doubt get yourself arrested and tortured by the Inquisitorius,” I-Five finished. “It’s a New Order out there, remember? If the assassin is still alive—a low probability, given the attrition rate in his kind of work—he is not the hunted. You are.”
“He was acting under orders,” Jax said. “Orders from very high up. Orders that may possibly have come from Palpatine himself.”
“And?” When Jax didn’t reply, the droid continued, “Do you dream of taking the fight to the Emperor? Weren’t you the one who told me not too long ago that the very concept teeters on madness?
“You’re doing everything one life-form can do, Jax. A great deal more than most do. Would you throw it all away to avenge someone you never even knew?
“I knew Lorn Pavan better than anyone, I daresay. I can call up memories of him that seem as real as you. And I’m certain he would tell you to let the past care for the dead.”
“So you didn’t tell me his killer was a Sith because you knew that I’d feel honor-bound, both as his son and as a Jedi, to bring closure to all this?” Jax shook his head in disbelief. “How? You didn’t even know me at the time.”
“I knew your father,” I-Five said. “And I came to know the Jedi over the years. And I saw the Zabrak. Nothing could stop him. Lorn wouldn’t have wanted you cut down like he was.”
Jax’s head was spinning. If there was the faintest possibility that a Sith did still exist, it was his duty as a Jedi to hunt him down. Added to that was the urge to avenge the father he never knew. But he had to admit that I-Five was making a lot of sense. As a Jedi, his first duty was to help the people, not pursue personal vendettas. Also, the galaxy had changed: to be identified as a Jedi Knight now wasn’t the automatic ticket to awe and respect that it once had been.
But he couldn’t simply let it go …
I-Five said quietly, “I was wrong not to tell you everything, Jax. It’s not my right to choose your path. But now that you know, should you decide to investigate this further, I can at least help level the playing field.” So saying, he opened the hatch to a small, hidden aperture in his chest plate, in what would be the upper left quadrant of a human’s torso. He reached into the chest compartment and withdrew a small vial. After a moment, Jax recognized the clear tube, about the size and length of his index finger, as the vaporizer delivery ampoule for a non-invasive epidermic injector commonly referred to as a skinpopper.
“This is, as far as I can determine, the sole remaining sample of bota extract in the galaxy,” the droid said. “Bota was a broad-based ergogenic plant native to Drongar.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jax said. “It was the reason the Separatists and the Republic fought there … until it mutated and became worthless.”
“Yes. It is—was—what’s commonly known as an adaptogen: a panacea that has various, mostly salutary effects on differing species. To Neimoidians it’s a narcotic, to Hutts a psychedelic, to humans an antibiotic, and so on.
“During her tour of duty as a healer, Jedi Barriss Offee accidentally discovered that a dose of the distillate greatly enhanced her connection to the Force. She described it as being linked to all beings, all places, throughout all times.” The droid hesitated, then added, “Jedi Offee wasn’t one to overly indulge in hyperbole, so I assume that her assessment was a straightforward one, metaphysical as it may sound.”
“I believe you,” Jax replied. “How did you come into possession of it?”
“When I finally finished reconstructing my synaptic grid links, I remembered that I’d made a promise to Lorn once. He asked me to watch over you, if you’ll recall.”
“Hard to forget, with you reminding me at every opportunity.”
“Jedi Offee offered me the privileged status of being an envoy to the Temple by carrying the distillate with me back to Coruscant. When Den and I arrived, however—”
“There were no Jedi to deliver it to—until you found me.” Jax looked at the ampoule, held it up to the light, admiring its translucence. It reminded him, for some reason, of the pyronium nugget. “But why didn’t you give it to me when we first met?”
Again, I-Five hesitated uncharacteristically. “Because,” he said at last, “you’re one of the last few surviving Jedi. I had to make sure—”
“That I was worthy. That I wouldn’t use the bota in the service of the dark side.”
“Forgive me. I had to be certain. According to Jedi Offee, the enhanced connection with the Force is potentially so powerful that, were it to fall into the wrong hands, the results could be cataclysmic. She felt that it opened a channel to what she referred to as the Cosmic Force. I assume you know what she was referring to.”
Jax nodded, lost in thought. Most philosophers and students of the Force, including many members of the erstwhile Council, believed that the Force was above intellectual concepts of good and evil, and that the terms light side and dark side constituted nothing more than a merism. Nevertheless, many also felt a case could be made for viewing the Force, as it was generally understood and utilized, as a subset of a grander and all-pervasive unifying principle.
It was this “living Force” that was the aspect most Jedi—and most Sith as well—were familiar with. If one’s connection with it was strong enough, one could accomplish what seemed to most folk to be miracles: telekinesis, healing abilities, supernal strength, speed and stamina, even a certain amount of precognition.
But, according to the Old Teachings, this was only one aspect of a greater whole, much as one planar surface represented only a fraction of a hypergem’s multidimensional wonders, known variously as the unifying, cosmic, or greater Force. One connected with the greater Force only through a lifetime of meditation and sacrifice, but the reward of doing so was, it was said, a unification with all of space and time, an ability to manipulate matter and energy on the most elemental levels … even, it was said by some, the ability to throw off the shackles of the flesh in favor of an immortal body of energy.
If bota extract lived up to Barriss Offee’s description, it would seem to offer a shortcut to the enlightenment of the greater Force. If it could indeed potentiate the effects of his body’s midi-chlorians to such an unprecedented degree, and if it could make such power available to any Force-sensitive—well, then cataclysmic was definitely an understatement.
If Vader were to somehow learn of it … Jax couldn’t finish the thought. But then another thought, even more frightening, occurred to him:
What if he already knows?
What if Vader knew, somehow, that Jax was intended to be the recipient of the extract? He might not know the exact time or vector of its delivery, might not suspect that it had been carried to Imperial Center by a mere protocol droid. But if he had any foreknowledge at all, either through the Force or simply through mundane intel, of the miracle distillate’s properties, that was surely reason enough for his unflagging pursuit of Jax.
He said as much to I-Five. The droid agreed, adding, “Perhaps it would be best to hide it—ideally by someone else in a place unknown to you, so that a truth-scan wouldn’t reveal its whereabouts.”
Jax looked again at the clear amber liquid in the ampoule. “You had to pick a time like this to tell me about it.”
“And a better time would have been …?”
Jax had no anwer for that.
twenty-one
The meeting room wasn’t large. It was hidden behind a false wall in the kitchen of a charity that fed the homeless and hungry representatives of several species. It was surprisingly crowded, however. Jax found himself standing against the rear wall as the cell’s leader spoke from the makeshift forum at the front of the room. That the partisans had passion and were driven by determination could not be denied. Passion and determination were, however, poor substitutes for Star Destroyers and divisions of stormtroopers.
The speaker was a Gossam, elaborately dressed in the style favored by his people. His tone was sharp and his words, eloquent. His passion was easy to understand. Among the nonhuman species, Gossams had been especially singled out by the Emperor for continued persecution.
“Hear me well, disgruntled masses. First the stormtroopers will come for the peaceful nonhumans such as the Gossams and the Caamasi. Then they will come for the defiant nonhumans. Then the humans who object, and, finally, they will turn upon and devour themselves in an orgy of mindless destruction and self-loathing, until the galaxy turns back to barbarism and all semblance of kindness, decency, and civilization is lost!”
It went on in that vein for some time, individual members of the audience frequently murmuring their agreement. There was no applause; the speaker’s words were too solemn for applause. Jax listened with half a mind, the other half being occupied with studying those in attendance. In addition to the humans there was a representative smattering of sentients from all across the galaxy, as he had known there would be. The Whiplash drew support even from some of those species seemingly favored by the government.
As a member of the subversive organization, he attended the clandestine meetings whenever he could, to reacquaint himself with familiar faces and to meet new ones as well.
A tall and elderly human female took the podium from the exhausted Gossam and started talking about organizations similar to the Whiplash that were forming on other worlds. Jax sat up. This was news to him, as it no doubt would have been to the general media. Was the government aware of these stirrings? If so, it would behoove the Imperial authorities to keep such knowledge quiet. A cluster of malcontents on one world was easily monitored. Individual groups of dissenters were each separately a simple matter to contain.
The woman was talking not merely of groups with similar ideas and aims, however, but of the first threads of cooperation among them. Of the Whiplash not simply talking to like-minded factions on other worlds, but of linking up with them. Of not just speaking out, but taking action.
What she was describing went deeper and broader than resistance. She was promoting organized rebellion. Not for now, not even for tomorrow; the advocates of resistance were too scattered and too few to risk anything like direct confrontation with the government. But the first notions, the preliminary inklings, were there, scattered throughout her speech. Some in the audience were moved to tears, others to cries to take up arms immediately. The speaker calmed the latter even as she dissuaded them. It was not yet time. Preparations had to be made. Measures needed to be taken. The groundwork had to be laid.
A now riveted Jax listened intently to every word. Clearly the Whiplash was becoming more than just an avenue for getting dissidents safely offworld. There was purpose growing behind it, and individuals who were dedicated and empowered.
Just individuals? he wondered. Or were certain planetary governments, disenchanted with the direction Palpatine was taking, having second or third thoughts about aligning themselves with the newly proclaimed Empire?
After the human finished speaking, the meeting broke up. Some attendees departed quietly and in haste. Others remained, gathering in small groups to further discuss the ideas that had been presented. The speakers had removed themselves quickly, departing one at a time and in different directions so that if any happened to be followed and picked up for questioning, their arraignment would not imperil their fellows.
Jax was leaving, too, when a sturdily built older human crossed his path and raised a hand.
“Your pardon, citizen.” The man’s gaze dropped to the deactivated weapon partly concealed at the Jedi’s waist. “I couldn’t help but notice the unusual weapon you’re carrying. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a Velmorian flamesword. An unconventional weapon, but one that can still be quite effective.”
“You have a good eye for tradition, friend.” Jax resumed walking. The man fell in alongside him.
“Weapons are something of a passion of mine,” he stated. “There are few outside Velmor who could handle such a weapon with any skill.” He eyed the increasingly uncomfortable younger man intently. “You are not Velmorian.”
“No, I’m not.” Jax lengthened his stride.
The persistent stranger kept pace. “Please don’t misconstrue my curiosity.” He indicated the meeting room behind them. “We are all here for the same reason. We share the same purpose: a discontent with the way things are. We are all renegades.”
Jax slowed slightly. Probing with the Force revealed nothing hostile within the stranger. A tremendous intensity, yes, but nothing to suggest that he might be an enemy. Still, it was best to be cautious. He stopped and looked at his questioner. Though he was dressed in nondescript civilian garb, there was the unmistakable air of the military about him. He looked like he knew how to handle himself in a fight, and the antiquated eye patch did nothing to dispel that impression.
“Was there something you wanted from me, citizen, or did you just want to compliment me on my taste in personal armament?”
“No,” the man responded apologetically. “I meant no intrusion. The flamesword caught my eye, was all. That, and an admitted curiosity to know what sort of person could effectively wield such a device. Other than a Velmorian trained in its use from childhood, one would think only a Jedi might have such skill.”
Jax tensed, but though he probed deeply with the Force, there was still nothing threatening about this pushy interrogator. Certainly nothing to suggest he might be a government agent or a representative of the sector police.
“You have me all wrong, friend. I’m just a hobbyist who picked this blade up at a market sell-through. I don’t really know how to use it, but I like the way it rides at my waist, and the sight of it is enough to scare off those who might try to cheat me.”
“I see.” The man seemed disappointed, but willing to accept the younger human’s explanation at face value. “At what would they try to cheat you, that you would feel the need of such a weapon to wave at them?”
Jax thought quickly. They were approaching the exit to the street, and this conversation was approaching its end. “I’m a gambler, so I often have large sums of credits on me.” He extended a hand. “It was nice to meet a fellow dissident, but I really have to be on my way.”
“And I as well,” confessed the stranger. “Might I know your name, young gambler?”
After a moment’s concern, Jax decided, Why not? He was never going to see this fellow again. In another moment, the underlevels of Imperial Center would swallow them both.
“Jax Pavan. And you are—?”
The man appeared to hesitate, but not enough to unsettle Jax. As before, there was no sense of hostility or threat within him. As they shook hands in farewell, he said, “I am Captain Typho, late of Her Majesty’s Naboo Royal Security Forces.”
twenty-two
The droid was fast, Den had to give it that. Fast and sneaky. It popped up suddenly from behind a pile of rubble, firing four quick shots at Laranth. For all its speed, however, the Paladin was quicker. She whirled, her blasters clearing leather even as she crouched and turned, firing five shots in response. Each of the first four blocked an incoming charged-particle beam. The fifth shot nailed the droid right between the photoreceptors.
“And the crowd goes wild,” Den said. He was relaxing in a dilapidated formfit divan, with his feet up on an old console cabinet, watching the Twi’lek going through her ritual with polite interest. “If we’re ever attacked by a training droid, I have no worries about the outcome.”
Laranth ignored him. She dialed the intensity scale on her twin DLs back into the lethal zone before returning them to their holsters. Then she reactivated the training droid and sent it back to its charging niche.
Den yawned. “Think Jax is back from the get-together yet?”
“When he is, we’ll know,” she replied. “Or rather, I’ll know.”
“Cub, I wish I’d had that all-purpose intuition mojo like the Force back when I was a reporter. Would’ve come in awfully handy some—”
Laranth made a quick, lateral slicing movement with her left hand, its intensity rendering the fierce accompanying “Shhh!” superfluous. Den shut up. He watched the Twi’lek. She stood straight, in an attitude of listening. The passion with which she sought to connect with the Force was so obvious he half expected the fleshy tentacles her species wore in lieu of hair to rise like organic antennae, aiding her in her quest.
She stood for a long moment as if carved from jade, then abruptly looked at him and said, “Tell Jax I had to investigate something.” Without waiting for a response, she stepped back into the resiplex, emerging a moment later clad in a hooded cloak.
“You sure you want to go out there alone?” Den knew the question was foolish; if ever a creature existed who was designed for the mean streets of Coruscant, if ever urban natural selection had produced a predator better at stalking the city-planet’s duracrete jungles than Laranth Tarak, the Sullustan didn’t want to be in the same universe with it. Still …
“Wait for Jax,” he urged her. “Whatever they’re talking about at the Whiplash meeting can’t be nearly as important as whatever you’re up to looks to be.”
Laranth shook her head. “It could be nothing. I’ll be back this evening, most likely,” she said. Then, before he could say anything more, she walked away into the night.
* * *
Aurra Sing’s nostrils flared, almost as if she could actually smell her quarry. In a sense she could, if one could attribute something of that sense to the Force. Here, she said silently to herself, and close. Making her way steadily but unobtrusively through the crowds, she smiled her feral smile. She wasn’t 100 percent certain that it was Jax Pavan she was about to encounter, but it was someone steeped in the Force. Of that she had no doubt.
The trail brought her to an ongoing funfair in one of the deeper sublevels. Here there were tri-dee arcades, virtual rides, exhibitions from the farthest reaches of the galaxy—or at least what claimed to be such—and other attractions. Sing let herself be swept along in the polymorphic crowds, keeping her awareness extended.
Where are you, young Jedi? Where are you hiding in this hive of filthy, useless souls? I am coming for you. The Dark Lord wants you. This is easy for me. Don’t think you have a chance of defeating me; I have killed Jedi far more skilled than you.
A lover of chaos and confusion, Sing delighted in the funfair’s surroundings, where deafening noises and eye-smiting illumination, along with the multifarious commingling of species, all came together to produce a bedlam that she found pleasurable. Many of the attractions were genuinely clever. There was the Corrobor, where one didn’t just have the opportunity to race flying starships or participate as a crew member—one could also become the starship. In a neuralstim booth, one felt as if one was temporarily transformed into a thing of metal and composite, circuits and lights, weapons and engines. In the Droidome, similar virtual realities gave any sentient the temporary appearance and persona of a droid, from security to construction, from translator to engineer. Real droids found this particular entertainment mildly obscene, not to mention unrealistic. The worst that a customer could experience did not extend to such real-world droid tribulations as casual disposal or dismemberment.
There were high-tech massively multiplayer multi-species combat games, food and drink to sample from one end of the galaxy to another, live shows that one species would find unremittingly dry and another utterly hilarious, as well as body-switching simulations that permitted one to experience another species’ physicality, or gender, or sensoria. Size-distorters gave one the perspective of a giant or a germ. Transport sims for many known planets let one walk, float, or fly around the surface of a multitude of worlds.
Sing ignored them all. With her white epidermis, skintight jumpsuit, lithe figure, and shock of red hair geysering from her otherwise bald skull, she drew many intent looks from other patrons, some from wildly different species. To each she responded in one of two ways: by ignoring them or by giving them a look as hard and intense and burning as the open core of a nuclear reactor.
Where are you, young Jedi? Where are you, Jax Pavan?
She ignored the tempting diversions through which she strode. Ignored food, and liquor, and proffered stimulations of other kinds. Ignored come-ons and thoughtless invective, swiping hands and assurances of instant wealth loudly promised. Nothing could divert her from her task.
Close now, she told herself. She could practically taste her quarry, could visualize the shock that would freeze his expression as she tickled his navel with the tip of her lightsaber. Not that she needed anything to encourage her stalking, but her claustrophobic surroundings, underground and filled with shoving, jostling representatives of numerous species, reminded her of nothing so much as the zenium mines on Oovo 4.
Very close, now … An occasional celebrant caught a glimpse of her face, the look in her eyes, and made haste to get as far out of the way of the fast-moving white humanoid as possible. And then, abruptly, she found herself before the entrance to one of the fair’s main amusements: a Holo House.
Whoever the Force-sensitive she’d been tracking was—and she was virtually positive it was her quarry; the Force told her that its association with the entity Jax Pavan was very strong indeed—he was somewhere inside the building. She could simply storm in by the simple expedient of removing the head of the humanoid checking entrants. But that would draw unwanted attention, and, this proximate to her prey, that was the last thing Sing wanted. Despite her rising level of excitement, she forced herself to lower her heart rate and respiration. Look normal, she told herself. Relaxed, calm … just a single working woman out for an evening’s entertainment. Which wasn’t that far off the mark. She paid the entry fee, was assured the building was not crowded, and entered.
The attraction was like a house of mirrors, only without the mirrors. In their place, illuminated laser lines crisscrossed multiple levels. At the intersection of any two, a holoimage of one or another visitant from anywhere else in the place might appear. Being a holoproj, the image wasn’t mirror-reversed; there was no way to distinguish it from reality. Reach out and your hand would pass through the image, be it one of yourself or someone else. You could step through it and onto another pathway or level—unless, of course, it was not an image but an actual being. The result was confusion, bemusement, mistaken identity, and—ideally—widespread hilarity. Any vestige of the last emotion, however, was absent from the bounty hunter as she moved purposefully through the maze.
Laughter and conversation from other, distant visitors echoed through the passageways. Sing had her lightsaber out, but had not yet activated it. No need to alarm the paying customers—or to alert her target. Clenched in her gloved right fist, much of the gleaming metal was hidden from view. If necessary, she could bring it to full activation in less than a second.
She passed a handsome young couple amusing themselves by kissing their respective images, and felt her lip curl. Foolish, wasted lives, there for a few brief seconds and then gone in an instant, vanishing without ever having impacted the fabric of civilization. Not like her, Sing told herself. She had an effect. She made a difference. Perhaps not one that those who encountered her took pleasure from, but certainly one that they and those around them would long remember—assuming they survived.
Finding someone in the place was next to impossible without the Force’s aid. The multiplicity of levels, routes, and images offered too many choices for most people. Aurra Sing, however, would have been able to track her quarry through the lambent maze even had she been blind and deaf. The Force was her guide. A touch of the dark side was all that was needed to lead her through the multiple images, levels, and corridors, until …
There! Right in front of her, no more than five meters away, stood the target, clad in a cloak and cowl and looking in the opposite direction. Sing’s fingers tightened around the haft of her lightsaber. Moving silently, she drew near. As she did so, several replicated images of herself appeared to her left, right, and overhead. Each was equally determined, each equally grim.
It was too easy. Sing hesitated. She could feel the Force emanating from her target, but could sense no suspicion, no wariness. Why didn’t he sense her approach? Insufficient training, perhaps. Not properly attuned. Vader had told her that Pavan was hardly a master of the discipline. No matter; the Force was clearly present here. If this was in fact her quarry, she would bring him back alive to the Dark Lord; if not, then he was just another rogue Jedi or a Force-sensitive, and either way she would be allowed the pleasure of the kill. But she would not strike without first seeing the face of her victim. For the bounty hunter this was not a matter of ethics; it was all about personal satisfaction.
Clutching the lightsaber in her right hand, her thumb’s pressure just short of activating it, she reached out with the Force across the few meters separating them and gently “touched” the individual standing before her. Light as Sing’s mental goad was, the figure whirled at the sensation. The hood of the overcape fell back, and Sing’s gaze met the other’s.
Sing had just time enough to register that it was a female Twi’lek who stood before her. Then, before she realized it, her lightsaber was activated and parrying blasts from the twin DL-44s in the other’s hands.
Sing threw herself sideways. Half a dozen replications of herself duplicated the move with unnatural precision. Lightsaber whirling, she not only deflected incoming fire but struck back as well, knocking the bolts back toward her foe.
Using the Force, the Twi’lek leapt upward to the next level of the structure. The multiple images of herself that accompanied the jump offered no protection from a killer whose eyes could be deceived but to whom the Force spoke clearly.
Sing was right behind her. Spinning, whirling, jumping, she deflected every shot fired in her direction. A glimpse of one of her doppelgängers showed her lightsaber moving so fast, she appeared to be engulfed in a sphere of green fire.
But the Twi’lek’s aim was better than it had any right to be; it was on the same skill level as that of someone taught in the Temple. A bolt from one of the blasters slipped past Sing’s whirling lightsaber and singed her left shoulder. The bounty hunter gritted her teeth and slashed an opening in one of the plasti-form walls. Several surprised customers, seeing the fearsome form and a number of attendant images of her appear through the wall, fled screaming.
This wasn’t going well. The combination of the kaleidoscopic images and the panic-stricken civilians caused her grasp on the Force to briefly lessen. It was only for the fraction of a second, but that was enough time to allow the real Twi’lek to land a punch on her jaw that caused the world to momentarily dim.
Enough of this, Sing decided. She had a mission to perform, and, although her opponent wasn’t the Jedi she’d been sent after, the Twi’lek was still somehow connected to her prey. She would have to be taken alive and questioned.
Easier said than done, however. Eluding a complex swing of her lightsaber, the Twi’lek managed for just an instant to get under Sing’s guard. She fired. Sing felt the heat of the bolt and barely succeeded, aided by the Force, in arching backward enough for it to miss her face. Her high left cheek instantly acquired a four-by-one-centimeter sunburn. The dangerously close miss was enough to compel her to do something she had not done in some time.
She pulled her own blaster.
Handling the lightsaber with her right hand, she snapped off several bolts with the blaster gripped in her left. One burst caught the Twi’lek unprepared, blowing a hole in the floor beneath her feet. When the dust cleared, the Twi’lek was nowhere to be seen.
Reluctantly, Sing decided that it was time to break off the confrontation. In the distance she could hear the warning squeal of approaching police skimmers. Although her Imperial ident would extricate her from any confrontation with minor officials, she did not want anything that might be perceived as a failure getting back to Lord Vader.
While she didn’t doubt her ability to take the Twi’lek alive, she had now realized that her antagonist was most likely a member of the Gray Paladins. The blasters were the clue. That meant she was a Jedi, and not likely to be very forthcoming about a fellow Jedi’s whereabouts, even under torture. Add to that the very likely possibility that, if Sing was circumspect enough, she might be able to follow the Paladin back to Pavan without arousing suspicion, and she was left with only one sensible choice.
Gathering herself, Aurra Sing thrust her lightsaber over her head and leapt straight upward, smashing through two floors. She landed on the roof, then leapt again, and again, using the Force to augment the power of her muscles, until she was beyond the fair’s boundaries.
Then she stopped and waited. She could sense the Twi’lek’s Force connection, could tell if it was coming toward her instead of going away. For several minutes the blip on her mental radar stayed mostly in the same area—no doubt because the Paladin was searching the Holo House for her. But then it began to move slowly away from her.
A grim Sing began to follow. This time she would be more circumspect; would bide her time until the situation was less crowded, with more chance of success.
The hunt was rapidly coming to a close.
twenty-three
Jax got the comm call from Laranth just as he, I-Five, and Den were leaving to rendezvous with Dejah Duare. The Twi’lek was typically laconic:
“Someone wants you dead.”
“How?”
“Badly.”
“No, I meant how do you know this?” And whoever it is, Jax added silently, tell ’em to get in line.
“Because I just finished dancing with the assassin who’s looking for you. I could feel her more than a klick away, which is why I went to investigate. Not the best idea I’ve had lately.”
Jax nodded. “I take it that she’s still ambulatory.”
“And lethal. You’re being hunted by the best, Jax, if that’s any consolation. Where are you now?”
“Sari Street, near Caspak Boulevard.”
“Wait for me there,” Laranth said.
As he listened to the Twi’lek elaborate on her adventure, Den realized once again that he was not a happy life-form.
“Aurra Sing?” he asked. “The Aurra Sing?”
A grim-faced Laranth nodded slowly. “Unless you know of another who matches the description.” Her voice was as dry as a year on Tatooine.
“Flattering, in a sense,” I-Five said. “I read up on her while I was uplinked to the police grid. She’s infamous, and she doesn’t come cheaply.”
Jax nodded. He knew that there was no need to wonder who would set a bounty hunter with Sing’s reputation on him. Only one person could have afforded the credits to hire her.
Nice to know I warrant the best, he thought wryly.
Den grabbed his ears in a Sullustan gesture of exasperation. “I think,” he said, “that it’s long past time for us to grab the next freighter to clear its cradle and leave, Jax. I mean, Sweet Sookie’s aunt!” He shook his head. “If Sing’s after you she won’t rest until most, if not all, of us are dead—and don’t ask me to place odds. We have to get off this overpopulated pit of perversion. Not that I have anything in particular against perversion, mind you. It’s just that I take umbrage when part of the perversity is trying to kill me.”
“We gave our word to Dejah Duare.”
“You gave our word, Jax. Sure, her credit is generous and useful, but we can’t spend it if we’re dead. We need to relocate to a new neighborhood. On a new planet. In a new galaxy.”
“Quiet,” Laranth admonished them both. “We have company.” At the same time that she spoke, Jax heard the rising whine of repulsorlifts. A moment later the first of three police skimmers settled down in the street beside them. Other pedestrians gave the cools a wide berth, and any civilian vehicles that had been in the vicinity suddenly found other venues more attractive.
The police contingent was led by the sector prefect himself. Jax could see that he didn’t look happy to see them, but then he doubted that Pol Haus ever looked happy to see anyone in his line of work.
“So we meet again.” He paused, singling out Jax and I-Five. “Just what are you two up to now?”
“We’re just out for an evening’s entertainment,” Jax said, and smiled.
“Right,” the prefect responded. “And why does the kind of entertainment you favor always seem to involve breaking the law? I see the Zeltron’s not with you,” he continued, without waiting for a reply. “Interestingly, however, we just received a complaint from a local arcade, describing two female humanoids who did a considerable amount of destruction there in the last hour.” He looked appraisingly at Laranth, who met his gaze squarely. “One of them, it seems, was a Twi’lek.”
“I apologize for my species,” she said. “We can be rambunctious at times.”
“There’s also,” Haus continued, “a complaint on file from a well-respected art dealer named Shulf’aa, asserting that a certain Sullustan …”
Den did his best to shrink behind Jax’s legs.
“… claimed to be a police officer in an effort to extract information from said art dealer, under pain of shutting down his business.”
“A misunderstanding,” a small voice said from the vicinity of the Jedi’s thighs. “Easily explained, I’m sure.”
“No doubt,” Haus murmured. “Not so easy is the allegation from another broker, a Lonjair who calls himself Spa Fon, that you two”—he looked at Jax and Den—“entered his business premises under false pretenses, whereupon you intentionally and with malice threatened his person while delivering a merciless beating to one of his helpless and entirely innocent former employees, who—”
“Hold on,” Jax interrupted. “First of all, that Lonjair ‘broker’ is a professional thief. Second, the ‘helpless and entirely innocent former employee’ was a subspecies of Cathar who probably massed a quarter metric ton of pure meanness and who threw the first punch, and third—”
“Never mind.” The prefect sighed as he waved off Jax’s indignation. “I’m not really interested. But when your locator rings showed up near this latest disturbance, I figured it would be appropriate to check in, just for old times’ sake.” His tone grew stern. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, Pavan, beyond your amateur attempts to aid Fem Duare in her hope of identifying her partner’s killer, but I do know that you’re becoming an irritation. I have enough daily irritations in my position without having a semi-permanent one latch on to me. I say semi-permanent because it’s not going to persist. It’s not going to persist because if anything like this comes to my attention again, you”—he pointed to Jax—“and the rest of you as well, are going to find yourselves exploring the many and varied cultural delights of the sector jail. Do I make myself clear, at every end of the spectrum?”
“Perfectly,” Jax assured him.
The prefect scowled again and, accompanied by his squad, moved off into the crowd.
Den stepped tentatively out from behind Jax. “Spa Fon, Pol Haus, and now the infamous Aurra Sing. Whose list will we make next, Jax? Darth Vader’s?” The Sullustan snapped his fingers in mock realization. “Oh, wait, I forgot—we’re already there.”
Silently, Jax regarded his friends. He was proud of them all, proud of how they had come together as a team. Proud of how they had handled every danger and problem that had been thrown at them since they’d been with him. Did he have the right to ask them to endure more, to chance possibly greater risks? What would Master Piell have done?
Laranth would stay dirtside no matter what, he knew—the resistance movement was all she had to give her life meaning. But did he have the right to ask Den and I-Five, as well as Rhinann, to put their lives on the line every day for him?
He took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll have one more meeting with our client, and on the basis of that we’ll decide how to proceed. Maybe it is time to seek our fortunes elsewhere.”
“Good call.” Den was visibly relieved. Behind him, however, Laranth’s continued silence bothered Jax slightly. But then, he reminded himself, she had been moodier than usual lately. He didn’t need the Force to tell him that.
Mindful of his friends’ concern as well as his own interests, Jax was determined to be as firm and straightforward as possible in the course of what well might be his final meeting with Dejah. It was a determination he set his mind to before he left for the meeting the following afternoon, that he maintained in the course of the journey to her residence, and that he continued to hold right up until the time he was admitted to the domicile she had shared with the late Ves Volette.
At which point, determination vanished like a solar sail in a sun flare.
Zeltrons were noted for the flamboyance of their attire, but what Dejah was wearing when she greeted him seemed to be shocking even for her kind. A shimmering silver drapery, as much cloud as cloth, it clung to her body while remaining in constant and revealing motion. It was if she had slipped into a pearlescent mist that coated the shore of a moonlit beach. It flowed in all directions, maintaining the shape of her body while giving fleeting, suggestive glimpses of it. A necklace and bracelet of matching Alderaanian sequat shells completed the ensemble. Definitely not a knockoff she’d picked up at the local discount house. It had probably cost more than most folk made in a year. Or ten.
“Come in, please, Jax. Follow me.”
He did so, forcing himself into a detailed examination of the walls and ceiling until they had arrived at the conversation chamber. It was a sunken circular seating area with a riverstone-surrounded fountain in the center that could spout water, fire, or any of a dozen other entertaining visual enhancements, according to the whim of the dwelling’s occupants. At the moment, it was spraying a deep orange liquid. Off at the far end of the chamber were three now nearly priceless Volettes, each dancing and contorting to its own individual encoding. They supplied all the illumination the chamber needed.
The shifting light made it difficult for him to think. The cloud of intoxicating pheromones she was emitting—not to mention the intoxication factor of the cloud-like subtance she was wearing—did nothing to improve his focus, either. Using the techniques in which he had been trained, he regained his equilibrium. But even with the use of the Force, it wasn’t easy.
She didn’t make it any easier by sitting down right next to him.
“So,” she began, “what did you want to talk to me about, Jax? You said it was important.”
“It is. Dejah—could you possibly damp your, ah, emissions?”
She sat back from him—but only slightly. “You could have put it a little more subtly,” she said with a slight, petulant moue. “Why? Do you find my personal emanations unpleasant?”
“No. Quite the contrary. That’s the problem. I’m having a hard time focusing in such a … potent atmosphere.”
“Oh, well then, if it’s unsettling you.” She did nothing visually, but suddenly the room seemed to clear and he was able to think reasonably straight again without invoking the barrier of the Force. Her smile left no doubt that being distracting bothered her not in the least.
“Thanks,” he told her. It would have helped his concentration even more if she could have done something about what she was wearing, too, but asking her to eliminate that would in all likelihood only make things worse. “I’m here because of the job.”
Her expression went from moue to full-fledged pout, which, although intended to convey a sense of disappointment, only ended up rendering her even more alluring. “What’s wrong, Jax? Isn’t the retainer I’m paying you and your friends sufficient? If it’s inadequate, I suppose I could—”
“It’s not the money,” he assured her quickly. “It’s just that other factors have come into play. For one thing, the sector prefect is growing increasingly irritated at our probing, to the point of threatening us indirectly but unmistakably with incarceration if we persist in our inquiries.”
Her eyes flashed. Set against her pale red skin, the effect was positively destabilizing. “Tell me his name. I’ll pay him a visit. I guarantee you that afterward he won’t threaten you again.”
Afterward he’ll probably run naked down the Imperial parade thoroughfare if you ask him, an increasingly unsettled Jax thought. “Better to stay away from the police. That’s what we’re trying to do. But there are other complications. For example, there’s a woman—”
“That truncated Twi’lek?” she interrupted him.
“No, not Laranth.” Why would she think of Laranth? he wondered. “Someone else. Someone very dangerous. I’m concerned for the well-being of my friends.”
“I could pay her a visit, too.”
Her suggestion helped Jax remember why he was here. “This is one being I don’t think even your persuasive abilities would affect. I’m afraid, Dejah, that we’re going to have to terminate the agreement between us. My friends and I will still do our best to get you safely off Coruscant. But under these new circumstances, for us to continue the search for your partner’s killer simply poses too much of a danger. To you as well as us.”
Dejah buried her face in her hands and started sobbing. A fresh flush of pheromones burst forth from her, different from those that had enveloped him earlier but no less affecting. Despite the resistance he immediately put up, her empathic projections, combined with the desperate bouquet she was emitting, threatened to undermine his renewed resolve. He started to reach for her, to hold her and reassure her. Then, realizing what a mistake that would be, he remained where he was and let her weep.
It broke his heart.
After a couple of moments she looked up, wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands, and folded them in her lap. Even that simple gesture was fraught with sufficient implication to unnerve him, but he still didn’t move.
“Isn’t there anything I can do to make you change your mind, Jax? If not more money, then what?” The promise that shone in her eyes and hung expectantly in the air between them was almost powerful enough to shift a small planetary body in its orbit.
He felt himself wavering. Stall, blast it! “It’s just that,” he began, playing for time to get a new grip on his emotions, “we don’t seem to be making any progress. Or at least, not the right kind of progress. We’ve learned a few things, but they’ve just sent us off on different tangents. What we need is a fresh start. A new angle. Is there anything you can tell us that you haven’t told us before, that you haven’t told the police?”
“Well,” she said, “I have been doing a little questioning of my own. This is a pretty exclusive residential area, and people of all species here tend not to want anything to do with established authority. But they’ll unburden themselves to me.”
A Sullustan rockrender would unburden itself to you, Jax thought. “So what have you found out?”
“Probably nothing. But … there’s an old Drall who lives several domiciles down from here. You know the Drall—they’re so absorbed in their libraries that they hardly ever socialize. Because of that I don’t know if the police ever interviewed this elder. But the Drall are also noted for their jewelry work, and she used to sometimes have a chat with Ves about how art crosses species lines.
“She dropped by just a couple of days ago to finally offer her condolences. Said she would have done so sooner but that she was occupied with some important bit of cataloging. I invited her in and brewed up some dianogan tea she had brought.” Dejah smiled coquettishly. “Well, you know what that stuff can do. We had a good time.” The Zeltron leaned toward Jax, and this time her pheromonic discharge was rigorously muted. “In the course of our conversation she let slip that she had seen a large Vindalian in the neighborhood a few nights before Ves’s death.”
Jax frowned. It might be sheer coincidence that a Vindalian was seen in the vicinity when Volette had been slain. After all, it wasn’t as if the Baron and his mate were the only two Vindalians on Coruscant, or even residing in the better regions of the Imperial Sector.
But what if it wasn’t a coincidence? What if there was some kind of a tie there?
As he pondered it, there came the muted chime that indicated a presence at the entry. Grateful for the interruption, Jax sent tendrils of the Force to investigate.
What he encountered was cause at first for surprise, than unease. The entity requesting an audience was none other than Sele, Spa Fon’s Cathar bodyguard—or former bodyguard, before Jax had shamed him by defeat. He and Den had left the huge felinoid creature back at Spa Fon’s, where, he’d assumed, the warrior had expiated his shame through the ritual of Gi-an-ku’rii. Instead, here he was. How had he found Jax? Was he seeking a rematch?
Jax sighed and loosened the flamesword in its sheath. “Wait here,” he told Dejah. Then he stepped outside to confront the giant once again, realizing with grim irony that in some ways a death match against a being twice his size was preferable to being alone with Dejah and her pheromones.
Before he could say anything, however, the Cathar gave a low, submissive growl. “If it may please my conquerer,” he said with bowed head, “I have overheard certain scraps of gossip and hearsay on the streets that might have bearing on your quest.” He paused, waiting for permission to continue.
“Go on.”
“An acquaintance of mine, a Geroon, has a droid that he sometimes hires out as domestic help to members of offworld gentility. This droid told him that he saw a skimmer wearing the seal of Umber House parked near the conapt of the artist Ves Volette on the night of his death.” The imposing creature lowered his eyes. “I pray that this information may be of some small use to you.”
“It is indeed,” Jax said. “In fact, it buys you manumission. I return to you your autonomy. Go in peace.”
Sele raised his eyes in surprise and gratitude, and lost no time in making himself scarce.
Jax returned to Dejah’s sitting room, where the Zeltron eyed him inquisitively.
“Who was that?”
“I think,” Jax said, “it may have been the answer we’ve been looking for.”
twenty-four
It had taken time, but his instincts and his searching—all his hard work—had finally paid off. Where better to look for a renegade Jedi, after all, than at a gathering of renegades? Yet when the several meetings he had attended had resulted in nothing, not even a lead, Typho had been about to give up and focus on his other lines of inquiry. And then, at the last gathering he had decided to attend—success.
Perseverance was ever the key to victory.
Of course, the young man could be another Jax Pavan with the same name, and not the Jedi whom Aurra Sing had been charged with finding for Darth Vader. But given that Typho had found him at a Whiplash meeting, he found the possibility dubious, to say the least. As he trailed the young man from a distance, the captain utilized all the skills he had mastered in the security forces to conceal his presence from his quarry. Mentally, he fought to keep his attention on anything and everything else: the drifting aroma of cooking food, the passing of an attractive humanoid, an argument, an offer, a whisper overheard. If the fellow preceding him through the crowds was indeed a Jedi, Typho knew he had to exert every possible effort to keep from creating a disturbance in the Force that might alert Pavan to being followed.
At least his quarry didn’t turn and look behind him as he made his way confidently through the biodiverse throng. Perhaps the glut of various emotional emanations from the crowd prevented him from singling out his tracker. Or perhaps, feeling safe in familiar surroundings, he simply wasn’t paying attention. The reasons didn’t especially interest the captain, as long as the latter’s anonymity was maintained.
Eventually he saw Pavan enter a block of residences in a cul-de-sac. While automated residential security prevented Typho from following the object of his attention inside, still, he was confident he now knew the location of the man’s domicile. It was enough for his purposes. A dozen individual dwellings might lie behind the single secure entrance, or a hundred. It didn’t matter. It was enough that he had tracked the Jedi to this locality. Because, even if events proceeded as he planned and Vader was unable to snare his thoughts with the Force, Typho still wanted an ace in his field. He felt no compunction about giving up Pavan’s location, if by doing so he kept the upper hand for a few moments longer. Luck favored the prepared—every soldier knew that.
And besides, he planned on sending the young Jedi a gift that, if things didn’t go well, would at least see Pavan somewhat more prepared to face a Sith Lord. It was tempting to give in to the irony inherent in using it himself, but he knew he had to maximize his chances of success.
Vader wanted the renegade Jedi Jax Pavan—so much so that he had sent the infamous bounty hunter Aurra Sing after him. Too bad, then, for Aurra Sing, because Typho had found him first. He smiled grimly. How could an unknown minor planetary official possibly gain an audience with the Emperor’s wrist-hawk? By offering him something he desperately wanted.
Unbeknownst to him, Jax Pavan was Typho’s ticket to a meeting with the Dark Lord. The last meeting Vader would ever take.
There were ways of arranging such things. Ways of making contact, even with the Emperor himself, if one knew how to work the proper bureaucratic channels. Typho’s status helped, of course. It was not as if the peculiar roundabout communiqué was coming from some addled citizen off the street with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. As Typho tracked it, he saw that his message was making steady progress toward its designated recipient. He had little doubt what the reaction would be when it got there.
Vader would contact him directly. He wouldn’t go through an intermediary for something that was evidently important enough to hire a bounty hunter of Sing’s caliber. And Typho would respond of course, but not without taking proper precautions. It was said that the Dark Lord could read a sentient’s true intentions at a great distance. That might be nothing but bilterscoot—but as a security professional, the captain would take no chances. Thus his preparations, in additon to ascertaining Pavan’s whereabouts, included paying a visit to a certain apothecary with a less-than-salutary reputation. Between the two, he should be ready.
The place was located on a dark street in an especially poorly lit section of Underlevel 20. This was not because it was a particularly bad neighborhood—quite the contrary, actually. It was simply that the nonhumans who inhabited the area tended to be members of species who preferred dim light.
Even so, the Kubaz still wore the diffusion goggles favored by her people when dwelling on planets with brighter suns than that of their homeworld. The black bristles on her head twitched and her long snout flexed upward in the equivalent of an unctuous smile as she greeted the new customer with a flourish of hand gestures.
“Krsft. How I be’s of service, sor?” Beneath the barely adequate overhead light, the chemist’s green-black skin appeared almost devoid of color.
“I want to buy a taozin skin nodule.”
Delicate fingers were already tracing relevant notations in the holoproj that hung in the air between them. “Dzzt. A rare curiosity. Expensive.”
“Cost doesn’t matter,” Typho said. “Do you have one?”
“Hmm-ezz. Possibly.” Drawing images and symbols in the air, the Kubaz checked her inventory.
“Got one inna stock.” She calculated the cost. “It gonna be … mfft-zza … nine hunnert creds total.”
Expensive indeed, Typho thought, then shrugged. There was no help for it; the taozin, also known as a Force dragon, was an extremely rare giant transparent invertebrate native to the jungle moon of Va’art. Some were also rumored to live in the abyssal caverns far beneath the lowest subsurface levels of Coruscant. What made the creature of interest to Typho was its invisiblity to Force-sensitives. According to legend, the spherical excrescences from the creature’s skin produced a strange void in the sensorium granted to some by the Force. So it was said, at any rate. The captain hoped the legend was true; he would only have one chance to test its efficacy.
The Kubaz handed him a transparent envelope that contained a sphere about the size of his fist, colored the faint yellow shade of a rancor’s tusk. The captain regarded it for a moment. Strange, indeed, to think of so small a talisman laying low the great Lord Vader. But that was the special thing about talismans, wasn’t it? They always promised more than they appeared capable of delivering. That was, after all, how magic worked.
Typho turned and strode from the building, his talisman held tightly in his hand. He had one final chore: the package for Jax Pavan.
After that, he would be ready.
twenty-five
The silver-coated protocol droid could not look surprised, but its reaction to their presence was conveyed through its voice.
“Citizen Pavan.” Peering past Jax, the mechanical noted those assembled behind him. “And your friends.” The droid’s gaze stopped on a more familiar figure. “Dejah Duare, you are, as always, most welcome in this household.”
Den took a step forward. “How about the rest of us?”
The droid appeared momentarily confused. “You did not announce your coming. It’s not in my file.”
“The Baron and his mate are in?” Jax asked.
“They are in residence, yes.” Glistening lenses regarded the Jedi. “May I assume that your appearance here concurrently with that of Prefect Haus is not a coincidence?”
“You could assume that,” Den said, “since we arranged to meet him here.”
“Please announce us,” Jax said.
The droid hesitated, then turned and shuffled away through the plush carpeting. Jax and his companions waited outside the formal entry. The mechanical was not gone long.
“Please come in. The Baron is anxious, as ever, to hear what you have to say. And as always, I am sure he will be delighted that Dejah is with you.”
“The Baron isn’t the only curious one.” Pol Haus stepped into view in the foyer. “I can’t wait to learn your reasons for dragging me over here at this hour.”
Once again they were impressed by the opulence of the Baron’s surroundings. Umber greeted them convivially this time. His mate appeared shortly thereafter.
Pol Haus, who was there with a droid assistant, glowered at them. “Let’s hear it,” the Zabrak growled.
Jax nodded. Den and I-Five moved to opposite corners of the room. Their attitude was unperturbed, but their senses were alert. Everyone knew what Jax was going to say, even Dejah. They had discussed it beforehand, and all were agreed.
Now that the moment had come, Jax let the threads of the Force spread outward from him, to encompass everyone in the room. His effort to provide interior confirmation for what he was about to announce was disappointing. But then, he’d expected it to be.
“Very well,” he replied in response to the prefect. “I know who murdered Ves Volette.” He stole a quick glance at the Zeltron standing nearby. Having been prepared for the disclosure, she showed no reaction, either hormonally or telempathically. Satisfied, he returned his attention to their hosts and the police.
“A Vindalian skimmer bearing the crest of Umber was seen near the artist’s studio on the night he was killed.” As a startled Baron opened his mouth, Jax raised a hand to forestall the objection he sensed was coming. “I know it wasn’t you, Baron. I am as certain of that as I can be. You’ve—been checked out, and there’s nothing to suggest you had any involvement in the murder. Quite the contrary.”
“My investigations indicate the same, if anyone’s interested,” Haus added drily.
Umber settled himself. “I don’t know whether to be offended or relieved by your words, Pavan.”
“You are a true aficionado of Volette’s art. There are ways of confirming these things. You love his work and you were clearly very fond of him.”
“We both were,” Umber declared.
Jax sensed the Force threads he had let flow drift back to him. Yes, there was definitely a sense of unease in the room, of rising disquiet. It only served to substantiate what he had come to suspect.
“Yes. But certainly you far more than your mate.” Lifting his gaze, he looked past the noble. “Isn’t that right, Baroness Umber?”
She looked straight at him. Unfamiliar as he was with her kind, he could not read her expressions properly. But there was no mistaking the anger that flowed through the Force.
“I would not deny it.”
“Our droid”—and Jax indicated the watching I-Five—“succeeded in gaining access to your banking records.” He glanced at Haus. The Zabrak said nothing, but he was watching Jax very closely.
“Really, Pavan! This is too much!” This time Umber was unable to keep his outrage under control.
Jax met his irate gaze without flinching. “Over the past three standard years you spent a considerable sum on the works of Ves Volette. So much, in fact, that your credit rating and ability to spend and borrow became impaired.”
Umber could only sputter indignation. “I had it under control. At all times. Aside from the affront to my privacy, I fail to see how this has any bearing whatsoever on the identity of Volette’s slayer.” He turned toward Haus. “Prefect, surely this is a contravention of some investigative procedure.”
Haus shook his horned head slowly. “Let’s see where he’s going with it.”
“Someone else was worried about your finances as well, Baron,” Jax continued. “Someone who apparently felt otherwise about how well you had them under control. Someone who was not quite as overcome by the Caamasi’s creations as you were.” Again Jax shifted his attention to the Baron’s mate.
There was no question now about the uneasiness and anger that were flowing through the Force. He pressed on.
“You were the one Dejah’s neighborhood acquaintance saw near Volette’s studio that night, Kirma Umber. The witness said the individual she saw was larger than most Vindalians. I still don’t know much about your species, but I know that the female is always larger than the male.
“You followed your mate because you feared he was about to purchase yet another of Volette’s works, thereby further damaging your fiscal standing. After the Baron left, you confronted Volette and threatened him. Probably ordered him not to sell to the Baron any longer, or at least until you could get the family finances restabilized.”
She was staring at him. “Many humans have vivid imaginations. I have to say that yours, Pavan, is far more florid than most.” Her tone was calm, but what he sensed from her was quite different.
“Independent voice and artist that he was, Volette refused. You attacked him. Maybe not with the intent of killing him, but with enough force to stab him. Then you fled.”
Baron Umber was staring at his mate. It was plain that he wanted to say something but could not find the words. Kirma looked at him, then back at Jax.
“You know something. I don’t know how, but—yes. I followed my mate, and I confronted Ves. I did ask him to stop selling his work to us. But it had nothing to do with finances. When the Baron says that he has them under control, I know that to be true. He loves Volette’s work, but he would never risk the family’s financial stability in pursuit of anyone’s art. Such a thing would be positively un-Vindalian.”
“Then why?”
“You should know.” Taking a step forward, the Vindalian female raised an arm and pointed. “It was because of her.”
Unbidden, the attention of everyone in the room shifted immediately to the startled Zeltron. Dejah gaped at the Vindalian, looked at the Baron, turned back to the Jedi. “Jax, I—I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
Umber spoke up without having to be prompted. “There was … an attraction between us, I admit.” He turned to his mate. “But that was all. Nothing happened. Kirma, I had no control over my reactions when I was in Volette’s dwelling and she was present.” He gestured helplessly. “She’s a Zeltron.”
“Better you had stayed clear of her presence,” his mate murmured.
“How could I do that?” he protested. “She was always there. When I was choosing a sculpture, she was there. When Ves and I were discussing payment, she was there. When negotiations were concluded or art was discussed, she was there. She was his partner.”
Kirma Umber looked past her mate. Her emotions were now very different from those Jax had perceived earlier. “And she is a Zeltron. That explains, but does not excuse.”
“Nothing happened,” Umber reiterated, with as much force as he could muster without shouting. His earnestness spread through the Force, and Jax believed him.
His mate met his gaze, held it, and finally turned to the Jedi. “I confronted Ves Volette. I left in a fury, but I left him alive.” She turned back to Jax. “You must believe me! I didn’t kill him.”
A voice not yet heard from finally made itself known. It was calm, controlled, methodical. It was also from the last entity the Umbers and Haus were expecting to hear from.
“I did.”
twenty-six
Typho’s hands did not tremble as he entered the electronic address. There was silence after he finished, save for the faint susurrus of static. He imagined an aide speaking deferentially to the Emperor’s second in command: Lord Vader, the communication you requested be brought immediately to your notice is retained for your attention on channel six. Or words to that effect. Typho wondered what sort of humor his attempt to contact Vader had left the Dark Lord in. His mind’s eye saw Vader alone in a dark chamber, surrounded by humming, flashing technology, no doubt far more comfortable in such environs than in the presence of servile organics. His aides were in all likelihood unable to keep from engaging in the most obvious sort of fawning and scraping in the hope of incurring some small smidgen of their master’s favor. Annoying as such types were, they were sometimes necessary; Vader couldn’t do everything by himself, couldn’t be everywhere at once, and seeing to the organization and consolidation of the Empire no doubt demanded every moment of his conscious hours.
Except for this one interruption. For something like this he would make time.
The holoproj flickered and took shape. Typho watched as the three-dimensional image of the Dark Lord swiveled around in a massive blue-black control chair and thoughtfully regarded him.
From Vader’s point of view Typho was merely a human male, with his face masked. Though he felt nothing, he knew that the Dark Lord was reaching out with the Force, trying to divine the entity behind the disguise. He could imagine Vader’s frustration as the latter found his attempt mysteriously blocked. He was betting everything on the taozin’s skin node working now.
If Vader was being stymied in his attempts to read him, the Dark Lord gave no sign of it. “You know who I am,” he said. “Who are you, who begs my attention?”
“My name is for my family,” Typho replied. “I have something you want.”
Vader nodded, the heavy helmet bobbing slightly. “So you claim. Whether you speak the truth remains to be seen.”
“Then see, and believe.”
The projection wavered slightly as a smaller image was superimposed within the first. It showed the end of some meeting that had just broken up, clearly recorded from a cloaked pickup. The assembly and its purpose would not concern the Dark Lord. What would catch his attention, Typho knew, was the figure of a young man coming toward the pickup’s viewpoint. Automatically adjusting for distance, the device kept the human in focus and proper dimensions. There was no question of the identity. The image’s voice—with that of the pickup’s owner carefully and professionally deleted—provided what further confirmation was needed.
“Ah.” Satisfied, Vader relaxed in his command chair. “The traitorous Jedi Jax Pavan.”
“You want him. I can give him to you.”
“And in return?” Vader sounded impatient. Whole worlds waited, no doubt, on his decisions.
“Nothing much. Five million Imperial credits.”
“You are bold,” Vader said, a note of amusement in his deep voice. “Resourceful as well, in your attempt to hide your mind from the Force. I find myself … intrigued.
“The credits will be transferred, according to whatever directives you provide. I will authorize payment to take place the instant the renegade Jedi is in my hands.”
Vader didn’t stoop to haggling, Typho noted with relief. Still, the game had to be played out to avoid arousing the Sith’s suspicions. “How do I know I can trust you, Lord Vader?”
Vader seemed not in the least affronted. “You do not, and no guarantees I might make would reassure you. But money means nothing to me. I only want Pavan.”
“Then you shall have him. Tonight, at first darkness. There is a condemned transport hangar in Sector Four-Gee-Two. Come alone to the sixth floor. A dozen stormtroopers or so might make me nervous and put a premature end to our transaction.”
“I need no escort. I’ll be there. And remember: I want him alive.”
“No worries,” Typho said. “I’ve gained his trust, and when his guard is down, I’ll spike his drink with a double dose of dreamdust. By the time we three rendezvous tonight, he’ll be so happily deranged you could tell him you were his long-lost Jedi Master and he’d believe it.”
“A good plan.” Without another word, Vader severed the link. The image imploded and vanished.
So, then—the meeting was set. Darth Vader, the conscienceless murderer whom he had come to Coruscant to confront, would be there in person at the designated location.
“It won’t be long now, Padmé,” he murmured.
“I did,” the mild voice said. All eyes turned to the voice’s source—the Umber family protocol droid. The Baron and Baroness stared in shock at the domestic mechanical, who looked calmly back.
“Yes, you did,” Jax said. Through the Force he read surprise and curiosity from Haus. He looked at the stunned Vindalians. “I’m sorry, Baroness, to have accused you unfairly. It was the only way to induce your droid to confess.”
“But how? Why?” Umber asked.
“Your droid has been in the service of the same family for a very long time,” Jax said. “Much of the time we organics don’t even notice droids. We’ve developed the ability to ignore their presence even in intimate situations.” He smiled slightly. “I speak from experience. We know they’re there, but we don’t acknowledge them unless and until we need them. Yet that doesn’t mean they’re devoid of self-motivation.” He glanced at I-Five. “Take I-Five, for example.”
“But he’s an exception,” Den pointed out. “Your social and interactive programming and related circuitry were illegally modified,” he added to the droid.
I-Five looked down at his friend. “So naturally, you would assume that I’m the only one who can be or has been so modified?”
Across the room, Kirma Umber was moving slowly away from her droid. Away from the machine that had been in the service of the family Umber for longer than she could remember.
“It’s not possible,” she said. “There was no reason …”
“I saw your distress.” The silver protocol droid spoke calmly. “I perceived it silently for years, while the Baron paid his frequent visits to the artist Volette, and his partner, the Zeltron Dejah Duare. I stood in silence, not commenting, while you shouted aloud your fears and worries in the privacy of your chamber.
“The last night you went to see Volette, I followed. Security is, after all, part of my programming. I saw no need to concern you with my presence. I observed your argument with the artist. I registered your body language, the raw emotion of your tone, the heightened conductivity of your galvanic skin response. I determined then the way to best fulfill my programming and my obligation to the family Umber.
“I confronted the Caamasi and attempted to carry out this programming with words. I was ignored, of course.
“I decided at that moment that further action was required on behalf of my owner. I therefore stabbed Ves Volette in the anterior plex with this.” The droid held up its right fist and one of the digits shot up, transforming into a short, lethal-looking spike.
Kirma Umber gasped.
“Your data retrieval spike,” Jax murmured. “You had more than enough strength to penetrate the protective cartilege.”
“True. As there were no direct witnesses, once the Baron was cleared of involvement, I thought the matter, deplorable as it was, might fade away.” His gaze was focused across the room, on Jax and I-Five. “I feel something that organics would term curiosity—a desire for heuristic extrapolation. How did you come to suspect me?”
I-Five answered. “While Jax and Den were questioning Spa Fon—” Haus coughed discreetly, to which Den offered a sickly smile. “—I was engaged in a cyberspatial data search.” He looked at Jax. “If you will recall, I was still in the same mode when you returned. I was studying the details of the murder. In the course of my investigation I made good use of access to certain records of the sector police.”
Den gawked at his companion, then looked at Haus. “And you thought what I did was illegal.”
“When I was at the crime scene,” Jax continued, “I noticed that many of the forensics droids were DN-Seven-Two-Fours, which I-Five’s research indicated are quite similar to your design.” He looked at the protocol droid, which stared calmly back. “They had a tendency to shuffle across the plush carpeting, leaving distinctive tracks—the same sort of tracks you leave in this carpet. That was what first aroused my suspicions. Further investigation by I-Five revealed that your model had a data spike perfectly suited for inflicting the wound that killed Volette.” He didn’t mention the biggest clue of all, which was, ironically, the lack of a clue. His inability to sense the guilty party, put together with his negative readings of the Umbers, pointed straight at their droid. Mechanicals were notoriously hard to read through the Force. He couldn’t tell Haus this, of course.
The Baron started to speak. “If it was our droid, then a reprogramming should suffice to—”
The droid, astoundingly, cut his owner off. “Such an action would bring shame to the family. I am prepared to execute the appropriate resolution. It is only rational.” The gleaming lenses dimmed visibly. A few flickers of light sparked from the base of the droid’s skull. As the smell of ozone began to contaminate the room and the last of the sparks flared out, I-Five walked between the organics, stopping when he was within arm’s reach of the motionless silver mechanical. As the others looked on, he extended his left hand. From the next to last digit a small probe telescoped, which I-Five inserted into a receptacle in the side of the other droid. A moment later it withdrew and retracted back into his finger. I-Five turned to the watching organics.
“Wiped. The neural net was fried. Not restorable by any specialist, no matter how talented.” He tapped the side of the protocol droid. “Probably worth something as scrap.”
Jax, who was watching Dejah, saw a single tear roll down her cheek.
“Well, that’s just great,” Pol Haus said. “What am I supposed to tell the upper crust, who’ve been clamoring for some closure regarding their favorite artist? That a droid killed him? Oh yeah, that’ll go down well.”
“If I might make a suggestion,” Dejah said, “surely there is no dearth of criminals on the streets who have gone free for want of evidence. I would think that this crime could be adjusted to fit one of them.” She noticed the others looking at her in surprise, and shrugged. “As Prefect Haus has pointed out, there is no sense of justice to Ves’s death as it stands. If some good can come out of it, maybe that will help.”
Haus ruminated for a moment, then turned to his droid assistant. “Round up the usual species,” he told it. “Maybe we can get something good out of this, after all.”
Kirma Umber stared at the permanently frozen mechanical, then met her husband’s gaze. The Baron smiled reassuringly at his mate. “We’ll get another one. It was only a device, and it was getting old.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “It was only a device.” A tear coursed down her cheek. “But loyal.”
twenty-seven
The jet-black aircar had no driver; only its singular passenger. Typho watched from his concealment. Apparently Vader had acceded to his conditions. Well and good. The armored, automated vehicle arrived on exactly the indicated level and stopped at precisely the specified spot within the condemned transport hangar at one minute past the designated time for the meeting. A stickler for precision, Vader was.
Typho tensed. He knew he had but one shot at this. He had no illusions about his contemplated action. It had nothing to do with honor, with a fair fight. It was murder, pure and simple. He would have to strike from behind, swiftly and lethally, and from a distance with a blaster. It was murder, and murder for the most ignoble of motives—revenge.
He shrugged away the thought. He had come to terms months before with what he was doing and why. His soul might be irredeemably stained by his action tonight, but Padmé’s would find peace. That was all that mattered.
“I came as you specified.” Spreading his arms wide, Vader lifted his cloak. Darkness seemed to envelop the entire floor of the hangar. “Alone and unarmed.”
It was time to trust in the small clump of mummified skin cells resting in his pocket. Time to avenge the woman he’d loved.
Time to strike.
Typho stepped quickly from his place of concealment on the floor above Vader. He’d chosen the spot with care. Directly before him was a hole six meters wide, and framed squarely within it was the Dark Lord’s back.
Captain Typho raised his blaster and fired.
At first he thought the ionized gas cartridge in his blaster had backfired. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had snatched him up and hurled him with bone-breaking force against the far wall. Stunned, in shock, he watched Vader’s form levitate through the hole in the floor. The black boots touched down next to Typho’s broken body.
“How pathetic,” the Dark Lord commented. He stood towering over his adversary. “Did you really think you had the faintest hope of assassinating me? It’s been tried by far better than you.”
Typho coughed, feeling his insides grinding together like broken glass. Blood stained his shirt. “You lied,” he said, feeling the words lodge like stones in his throat.
“Did I? I told you I would come unarmed, and here I am,” Vader told him. “You mistake the dark side for a weapon—something extraneous. It isn’t—it is intrinsic. I could no more shed it than I could go about without my support suit.”
He stepped closer. “I will give you one more chance,” he rumbled, “to cease whatever game you’re playing and provide me with Pavan’s location.”
“Or what?” Typho spat a mouthful of bright red blood. “You’ve already killed me.”
“True. You will not last long in any event. But don’t underestimate the power of the dark side. It can ease your passage. There is still a little time—unless you squander it.” Vader stepped closer, bent to peer into Typho’s face. “Why have you made this foolish attempt on my life?” The deep synthesized voice echoed through the empty hangar level. “Not that a specific reason is required or expected. But I should like to know. Those who speak their last should speak something of value.”
He leaned closer at Typho’s beckoning, to hear his final words. Typho was fading fast. He concentrated every fiber of his being on remaining conscious for one final act.
“This … is for Padmé,” he rasped. And with a supreme effort, he spat a mouthful of blood directly into the surprised Dark Lord’s mask.
Vader’s reaction was not what he’d expected. After a frozen instant, ignoring the bloody spittle running down one plasteel cheek, he knelt and grabbed Typho by the hair, lifting the latter’s head and eliciting a cry of renewed pain from him.
“What?” The flare in the Force that raced through the hangar was enough to shake the foundations of the building. The Dark Lord actually seemed to grow, to expand and become more terrible in his rage than Typho would have believed possible.
“Padmé,” Typho mumbled. “Padmé Amidala. The woman I loved from afar, for years.” He coughed again, felt more red shearing in his chest. “She … never knew. She was too busy, too deeply engaged in the … service of her people to notice me.” Another bright scarlet flower bloomed from his mouth. “And I attended to my duty—I, Typho, captain of Naboo. But I … loved her. And now … now she’s dead. Dead.” Then, with an extraordinary rush of resolve, Typho managed to raise himself slightly, exerting himself through sheer force of will against Vader’s anger.
“You killed her, Vader. You! I know it!”
Vader was silent and motionless again. When he spoke, his voice had the same deep inflection, the same synthesized thunder—and yet was somehow different.
“You know nothing.” Vader straightened, letting Typho’s head fall. “You’re not worthy of uttering her name.” Raising his arm, he flexed his fingers at the helpless Typho. The captain’s mouth opened and his eyes bulged slightly as the flow of air to his lungs was constricted. Far down in his mind, a remote part of him commented dispassionately that this was no doubt how his beloved had met her end. Astonishingly, he found he still was able to choke out a final sentence.
“And you’re responsible … for the death of the Jedi … Anakin Skywalker as well!”
The invisible, inexorable grip on Typho’s throat momentarily relaxed as Vader drew back in slight surprise. That brief pause was followed by the horrible sound of a Sith Lord laughing. Three levels below, a pair of intoxicated humanoids heard just the echo of it and were immediately shocked into sobriety—the fearful clearheadedness that comes with realizing that untold terror lurks nearby.
When Vader extended his arm downward the second time, his control was more precise, more deliberate. “Yes,” the Dark Lord said, his tone one of grim amusement. “Yes, I killed Anakin Skywalker. I watched him die. He was weak, was Skywalker. In the end he could not rule himself, could not control his contemptible human emotions. Most of all, he did not understand or appreciate the true strength of the dark side. And so—he died. The galaxy is better off without him.”
The world was unraveling fast for Typho. The pain was going, finally, pouring out of him as fast as his blood. But he died with a smile on his face, for, although he did not understand the how or the why of it, he knew that dying with Padmé’s name on his lips was a finer and deeper revenge upon Darth Vader than he possibly could have hoped for through confrontation. It was as if he could feel the man’s heart and know that, somehow, he had ripped it open with her name alone.
He also knew that living was a far worse fate for Vader than death.
He was content.
Now he could go and find Padmé …
twenty-eight
The package came by courier just as Jax, I-Five, Laranth, and Den were leaving Poloda Place to rendezvous with Dejah and escort her to her ship. The Whiplash, aided by the Cephalon’s prognosticative powers, had at last succeeded in securing a berth for her aboard the Green Asteroid, a trader in the Polesotechnic League. It would take her, over the next several months and by a roundabout route, to the pleasure planet of Zeltros. Dejah Duare was going home.
Rhinann had, as usual, elected to stay behind, citing “unfinished research.”
Jax accepted the package, which was about thirty centimeters by two, from the delivery droid. There was no return address. He looked at his friends, who appeared just as baffled as he. He shrugged and started to open it.
Den backed hastily away. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I don’t sense anything negative or dangerous about it.” Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. The enigmatic parcel had definite vibes, though nothing about them indicated imminent danger. Instead, it seemed steeped in evil, marinated in blood. Whatever it was, death had not been far from it.
When he opened the package, he understood why.
It was a lightsaber.
A holocard projected a message inscribed in simple cursive: A JEDI SHOULD NOT HAVE TO RELY ON AN INFERIOR WEAPON. GOOD LUCK. It was signed, A FELLOW REVOLUTIONARY.
Jax examined the weapon. The hilt’s design was elegantly simple, consisting of an ambidextrous grip of molded silver duralumin, with a locking activator similar to the one he’d lost in the Factory District. Good, he thought wryly, because you never know when you’ll have to overload another nuclear reactor. He wondered what color the blade was. There was no way to know without activating it, which, given their location on a public street, seemed a trifle rash. He knew it was functional, however. He could feel the Force coiled within it.
Den, standing on tiptoe, was able to read the missive. “Well,” he said. “That’s serendipitous. Weren’t you just trying to build one of these?”
I-Five took the card and looked at it. “A standard onetime holoproj chip,” he said. “Nothing remarkable about either the writing style or the delivery mechanism.” He cocked a photoreceptor at the Jedi. “I assume this comes as unexpected largesse?”
“You might say that. I can’t imagine who could’ve—” Jax stopped abruptly, remembering the man he’d met yesterday at the Whiplash assembly. What had his name been—Typhon? About all Jax recalled of the man was that he’d sported an eye patch. Could this have come from him? He’d shown interest in the Velmorian weapon, after all.
“I met a man yesterday,” he said slowly, “who might be—” He stopped abruptly, struck momentarily silent by a sudden turmoil in the Force. Its origin was a psyche he’d encountered before, of that he was certain, even though he’d only experienced it indirectly. No Jedi—no one, in fact, with more than a smattering of midi-chlorians—could forget the impact of a will that strong.
Jax said, “Vader’s nearby.”
Den looked nervously around the crowded street, craning his neck in a futile attempt to see better. “Where?”
“Nearby is a relative term,” Laranth said. “But I’d put the probability of his being in a ten-square-kilometer radius at pretty high.” She gestured south. “In that direction.”
“Okay,” Den said. “So we’ll be going that way, right?” He pointed north.
Jax and Laranth both stood quite still; then Jax said, “He’s pretty upset. Not bothering to cloak his feelings at all.”
“Intriguing,” Laranth said.
“Not a word we want to be using right now,” Den said. “Shouldn’t we be pulling in our antennae, looking for a metaphorical rock to crawl under? Or maybe even a real rock? Instead of standing around here sticking out like a bunch of naked Jawas?”
“Don’t worry,” Jax said. “We’re not pushing. And he’s far too troubled to be aware of us.” He hesitated, then added, “It does make me wonder what could disturb the Dark Lord to such a degree.”
“Fine,” Den said. “Wonder while we wander north.”
With Volette’s murderer finally identified—and conveniently self-immolated—Den was looking forward to events taking a more leisurely pace, for a time at least. One very large pressure had already been lifted from them for the foreseeable future: Dejah had insisted on continuing their stipend indefinitely.
“I insist,” she’d told Jax, forestalling any protests he had been about to make. “You’ve set my mind easy insofar as Ves’s murder is concerned. He has left me more credits than I know how to spend—and coming from a Zeltron, that’s saying something. It would be my honor to subsidize you and the work you do.”
Jax, typically, had done his best to talk her out of the deal, but Dejah, bless her, had been adamantine. And when faced with the persuasive power of her biochemical and telempathic arsenal, his resistance, he’d admitted, had been pretty pathetic. So she had gone back to her conapt to pack before meeting them at the local spaceport, and Jax had gone back to the others with a bemused look on his face.
Thus they had “creds and a shed,” as the Ugnaughts put it, for the foreseeable future. And they had more than enough work to keep them occupied, between the UML and the investigations that Jax would no doubt keep getting them involved in. Den sighed. The chances of Vader locating Jax and bringing his booted heel down upon them all were still much higher than the Sullustan would have liked, which meant spacing as soon as possible was still the only sensible option. But he’d come reluctantly to realize that, for all their boasting of rationality, humans were most comfortable living in the nexu’s den. Actually, he thought, make that the nexu’s mouth. He’d come to terms with the lifestyle—mostly, at least—and it wasn’t like they didn’t have some firepower on their side. I-Five and Laranth were still spot-on deadly with their lasers and blasters, and Rhinann, he had to admit, could slice past any database, Imperial or otherwise, and leave not a single ion to trace, slicker than supercooled Tibanna condensate. Maybe he wasn’t the most convivial of comrades, but Den could overlook that.
And then there was Jax. The Jedi was, he had to admit, growing into his role of a hero rather well. If he continued to survive Vader’s intermittent attention, not to mention the thousand and one other dangers that loomed downlevel every day and night, he just might become a force—no pun intended—to reckon with. He had a good enough support group, although there did seem to be subtle changes in the overall group dynamic over the past couple of days between him and the others. Particularly as far as Laranth was concerned, though the Jedi was as blind as a space slug if he couldn’t see how the Twi’lek felt about him. But there was a certain amount of tension between him and I-Five that was new as well. What was up with that, Den wondered. Hard to tell if anything was different as far as Rhinann was concerned; the dour Elomin kept interactions between himself and others at a minimum. And of late he’d become even more immersed in the HoloNet than usual.
Den shrugged. Well, after all, what family didn’t have its bickerings and quarrels? It was important to remember that, because that was what they were—a family, albeit a pretty dysfunctional one at times. The important thing was that they all came together when needed to make a good team.
Jax watched their client approach the spaceport’s entrance, noting with relief that she’d changed into traveling wear that was far less riot inciting than last night’s attire. As she drew closer, he realized that she’d damped her pheromones and mental lures as well.
Good. Now let’s get her onboard and offplanet before anything else can go wrong.
He felt slightly ashamed of his attitude—but only slightly. Though he had grown fond of Dejah, he was more than happy that she was moving on. Frankly put, she was trouble, even without the chemical and psychic come-ons.
Spaceport Nine was a large mass of surging, pushing, irritated, hurrying, frantic beings representing every species that was used to traveling between the stars. Which was to say that it was no different in design from any of the other many large spaceports on the capital world. What made navigating Nine a little more confusing, a little more difficult, and considerably more frustrating than working one’s way through, say, Spaceport Eight or Ten, however, was the fact that Nine was undergoing a complete makeover under the supervision of the Imperial Spaceport Authority. Old structures were being demolished, new ones erected, traffic rerouted, and what was left still had to function, somehow, as a fully operational port.
In such circumstances, the needs of machines invariably took precedence over those of organics. Station, crew, and maintenance workers—not to mention travelers—all found themselves squeezed into smaller and smaller corridors and forced to take directions from programs or service droids that were themselves subject to minute-by-minute updating. It all made finding one’s destination an exercise akin to negotiating the lowermost underlevels of the city itself.
Surrounded and delayed by agitated panglossia in dozens of tongues, the unavoidable reek of too-close-packed bodies, and the overriding cacophony of nonstop construction, one determined small group continued to force its way toward one of the farther launch pods. I-Five used a directed hypersonic pulse to ensure that his words would be heard over the din of the crowd. “Turn down the corridor to the left,” the droid said. “It’s a temporary elevated accessway that will let us bypass much of the major construction.”
Jax noticed glowing letters floating above the entrance, along with a multilingual glyph for “danger.” “It says CONSTRUCTION PERSONNEL ONLY,” he said.
“That’s us,” responded the droid. “We’re constructing a faster way to our destination.”
Jax hesitated, but only until they entered the corridor. It was nearly deserted, and for the first time since arriving at the port they could actually advance unimpeded. Jax took a deep breath and relaxed.
Or rather, he tried to.
Now that they had temporarily bypassed the pandemonium, he realized that the Force was trying to tell him something. Actually, that was much too mild a phrase. It was more like being grabbed by the lapels and shaken violently. Before he realized it, the hilt of his newly acquired lightsaber was in his hand. He didn’t ignite it yet, however; they were still in an all-too-public place.
A quick glance at Laranth confirmed that she had been warned as well; both hands were hovering near the twin DL-44s holstered on each hip. Jax looked warily about but saw nothing amiss. A few other species—mostly Niktos—walked or rode the slide-walks as well, but it made perfect sense that he and his cronies wouldn’t be the only ones to risk a fine by making use of the construction accessway.
Den said, “Now what?” in a tone of voice usually only heard from H’nemthe grooms on their wedding nights.
“Hush!” It was menacing—that much was certain. But where was its source?
The relative quiet of the accessway was suddenly shattered by a loud throbbing, fluttering noise. Then an ornithopter rose nearby, its wings thrashing the air. At the same time Laranth shouted “Look out!” and shoved him to one side. Jax barely avoided being hit by a slashing emerald blade.
Laranth didn’t.
twenty-nine
Jax landed on his side, rolled, and came to his feet in a single smooth motion, letting the Force do most of the work. At some point during the move he activated the lightsaber, though he couldn’t have said when. The blade—crimson, a remote part of his mind noted—boiled out to its full length in a heartbeat.
Then he was on his feet and facing Aurra Sing.
Though he’d never met her before, her appearance left him with no doubt of her identity. He would have little time for doubt in any case, because her blade was already whistling toward him. It was a green lightsaber, and its glow painted everything the same shade of corroded brass. Everything, that is, except the Twi’lek’s green skin—that it rendered the deep gray-green of ripe chee nuts.
Jax had just time enough to register that Laranth was either grievously wounded or already dead, and that she was directly in the path of the blade’s second downward arc, before he lunged in a desperate attempt to block it.
He did, but just barely. The clashing blades crackled, the air was rent with ozone, and the two lightsabers rebounded. Sing’s blade had been deflected just enough to miss Laranth. It sheared through the suspended floor of the elevated walkway, cutting supports. Jax backflipped and came down on the still-supported section, his lightsaber ready for another attack.
Behind him, his comrades fell into the abyss.
No time for even the briefest of reactions, as Sing was leaping at him again. Several meters below, an emergency-response tractor field automatically activated by the disintegration of the corridor caught his tumbling companions. They would slow-fall, but he didn’t have time to watch; he barely had time to breathe. She rained down on him a fury of blows almost as vociferous as the oaths and curses that accompanied them.
“Fear me, Jedi! I am Aurra Sing, Nashtah, scourge of your kind! I haunt your darkest dreams! I drink Jedi blood; I nest in their guts! Your nightmares now have a name, hierophant, and that name is Aurra Sing!”
He felt the Force flowing around her. There was considerable might to it, but it was wild and undisciplined and, as such, difficult to anticipate. He’d never before felt anything quite like it, and he’d certainly never heard anything like it.
At last she paused for a moment in her tirade. Raising his lightsaber, he slid his right leg back and lifted the humming beam over his head.
“You’d be the bounty hunter, then,” he said.
Hefting her own weapon, the woman grinned a feral grin at him. Externally, she was beautiful; even without an endocrine advantage, she could give Dejah a run for her credits. What Jax sensed within her, however, utterly obliterated any outward impression. She had an ugly soul.
“You handle a lightsaber well, prey.” Suddenly she leaned forward, and her crimson eyes narrowed. Then rage filled them—or at least, he thought, topped off the last little bit of sanity; it’s not like there was a whole lot to begin with—and she snarled, “Where did you get that?” She indicated his lightsaber.
He told her the truth: “An acquaintance sent it to me.” He shrugged. “I guess he didn’t want it anymore.”
She came in, and she was incredibly fast; faster than anyone he had ever encountered. Only the Force allowed him to anticipate her reactions; otherwise he would have surely lost limbs in the first minute of action. It was all he could do to parry the hurricane of blows she threw at him: cut-cut-cut-thrust-diagonal-cut—!
He leapt backward to escape, felt the heat of her lightsaber singe his right foot as it cut through his boot and sliced off part of the heel.
Maybe needling her into losing control wasn’t such a good plan after all …
As he flew backward, Jax slashed behind himself with his weapon. A newly installed transparisteel pane shattered under the impact of his lightsaber, just in time for him to sail through unharmed. He landed on his feet on the roof.
In an instant, Sing followed. She flew through the opening, eyes narrowed, her arms held wide for balance. Her lightsaber was a viridian shaft in the semi-darkness.
She cut downward, hard, so fast! Without the Force, he would have been bisected. Instead, before he could think, his body moved on its own, wrapped in lines of power. Unbidden, his hand snapped up to block her blade with his. Scarlet and emerald lightning once again blinded them both momentarily. Coupled with the force of her descent, her strike knocked him backward again, across the roof construction. He nearly fell off the far edge.
Behind him, several massive automata were hard at the business of demolition and construction. At a comfortable control station somewhere, a supervisory sentient was probably kicked back in a form-chair, watching as the gigantic machines did all the work. Would he or she glance at a screen, take notice of the fight amid all the heavy work, set down the inevitable cup of caf and notify security? Would the fight even last long enough for help to arrive?
She came at him again. She was fast, strong, and good, but she was also reckless. She had said it herself: her passion lay in hunting Jedi, not fighting them. She was used to striking hard and fast, a streak of scarlet in the night. She wasn’t used to fighting skilled opponents for any length of time.
Jax kept backing away, parrying, letting the Force completely control him. A wrong move and he would be chopped down. His best bet was to wait, to let her wear herself out before trying to take her down. Assuming he could outlast her. She was humanoid, but not human; there might be different rules for her kind. He was already certain that her fast-twitch muscle percentage was far higher than his. He was getting tired, and she seemed as fast and strong as when they’d started.
They were among the machines now. Heavy lifters and composite depositors, link checkers, emitters, and synthesizers whirred and hummed and rumbled all around them. Sing continued to push him back, back, always back. Jax went with it. He wanted her to be sure that she was winning.
Maybe she was …
At least she’s stopped her diatribe. I was beginning to think she was trying to talk me to death.
“No need to die,” she said, as if reading his mind. She threw a fast series of choppy attacks, none designed to do major damage, but rather to set him up for the killing stroke.
“Really? What do you think your boss plans to do with me? Buy me lunch?”
“Not my concern, Jedi. Surrender now and maybe you can negotiate something with him. Don’t, and I kill you now. An iffy future is better than none, don’t you agree?”
She charged in without waiting for an answer, and her attack sequence was too fast for him to follow consciously. The Force answered, its strings manipulating him like a marionette’s, but his body wouldn’t be able to keep up much longer. He blocked, counterattacked, was parried, and ducked just in time as she tried to take his head off.
This was not going well. He needed to do something, and soon, or—
Sing was growing impatient. The blasted Jedi refused to capitulate, even though the Force was all that was holding him up at this point.
She wasn’t sure how he’d come upon her lightsaber; most likely he’d had an encounter of some sort with Typho. The particulars didn’t concern her—she was intent on getting it back, and she wasn’t too particular about how. If it meant prying it from the cold, dead fingers of his severed hand, she was sure Lord Vader would understand. But she wanted this to be over, and soon. Her stamina would outlast most humanoid sentients, but when it faded, it faded fast.
Even acknowledging the possibility of failure was not an option. She would defeat this upstart Jedi. Anything else was unthinkable.
Movement out of the corner of his right eye caught Jax’s attention. The energy of their lightsabers clashed and sizzled yet again, and he allowed the blow to send him staggering back toward the activity he had sensed. All he had time for was a quick look.
He couldn’t fight any harder. He had to fight smarter.
The machine was a large reposticator, or fabber. It chewed up raw material that looked like sand from a hopper, then laid a sheet of translucent plate onto the roof for a hard, weatherproof coating. The hopper had a safety field that glowed a pale blue, to keep things from falling into the raw-materials bin. Wise, because the fabber would ingest anything that fell into it and restructure the material into its extrusion.
A desperate plan popped into his head.
He tried an attack, a basic, simple Form II series he had learned early on. Not really much of a threat; the moves were designed as defense against an opposing lightsaber.
Sing did just that, easily blocking the attacks. She laughed.
“A defense unworthy of a Padawan? Come on, you can do better than that, can’t you?”
“Not really,” he said. But all he wanted was a little running room, which the moves had given him. He turned, sprinted three steps, and leapt with every bit of the Force he could muster, managing to land on the control bar above the fabber, arms windmilling in a charade of seeking balance—
Sing would be right behind him, he knew; he wouldn’t even have time to turn and face her, and she would use the field guarding the raw-materials bin as a step before launching into a lunge that would easily unbalance him from his narrow perch.
He felt for her, using the Force—
The flashing red button on the control panel was just next to his damaged boot. Jax waited until he felt Sing land on the field—
Then he stepped on the button.
The field shut off.
Sing screamed as she fell into the churning sand. Her lightsaber cut a swath of molten energy through it, fusing the sand into lumpy green glass—then was snuffed out as she lost her grip on the hilt.
Sing looked up at him as she sank beneath the sand. It churned while it was sucked into the machine. The last he saw of her was a splotch of red hair.
He turned and started toward a nearby drop-tube, realizing that his friends should have reached the ground by now …
thirty
Jax had two bombshells dropped on him in quick succession soon after he got to the medcenter.
The first was from Dejah. She had checked out fine, her medscan showing no aftereffects from the fall. “We Zeltrons are a hardy breed,” she said with a grin. She seemed quite a bit more cheerful—so much so, in fact, that Jax asked her what good news she must have received while in care.
“It’s a decision I’ve made,” she replied. “I’m staying here on Coruscant instead of returning to Zeltros. I want to be part of the resistance movement.”
“What?” For a moment he wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “You mean, after all the work and risk that members of the Whiplash took on to ensure your safe passage, that—?”
“I’m staying. Yes. I regret the trouble I’ve caused, but I think that, if you consider what I have to offer, you’ll realize it’s the best choice.” She ticked off the reasons on her fingers as she spoke. “I’m basal humanoid, which means that with minimal cosmetic and prophylactic disguises, I can be a human, a Mirialan, or even a Twi’lek. I’ve got the whole pheromonic-telempathic thing going for me, which lets me manipulate a roomful of people without their suspecting a thing. And I’m rich and beautiful, which gives me access to some corridors of power. Face it, Jax—your group needs me.”
He couldn’t argue with that. She was headstrong, willful, accustomed to having her own way; in short, a real handful—and she was right. She could be an asset, no question about it.
He hoped Laranth wouldn’t mind.
As it turned out, he didn’t get a chance to ask.
She was in a private recovery room, he noted with surprise; unusual for someone with no grid references. He suspected that Dejah had worked her money and manipulation abilities already to get the Twi’lek the best possible care.
She was conscious when he entered, having just undergone extensive bacta tank regeneration. Her right arm had been almost completely severed, and the lightsaber had caused a grievous wound in her right side as well, damaging her liver and pancreas. Were it not for the cauterization that the energy blade’s intense heat had caused as it did its damage, she would have bled to death before she’d hit the ground.
He looked at her face again, and was surprised to see her awake and watching him. Her gaze seemed even bleaker than usual. She didn’t respond to his greeting; instead she said, simply, “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Your group. I’ve decided that I can accomplish more on my own, without the distractions of attempting to solve mysteries best left to the sector police.” She raised her good hand to forestall any objections or questions. “I’ll still be around, Jax. I’m sure our paths will cross. But I think it’s best that we go our own ways.”
Jax, still mentally reeling from the news that Dejah had just given him, found himself totally at a loss for words. He stood there, mouth agape like a Padawan who’d just seen his first Force demonstration. At last, unable to think of any other course of action, he sent his Force lines to her, questing for her feelings, expecting nothing more than the usual impenetrable armor in which she shielded herself.
To his shock, he found her wide open.
Hesitantly, he pushed farther. She still offered no resistance. She’s not exactly welcoming me with open arms, either, he thought. Still, he knew it took an enormous amount of courage for the Paladin to go as far as she had.
Such trust demanded reciprocity. He opened himself, laid bare his inner feelings, his secrets, as best he could; he hadn’t had much practice in self-examination and -realization, either. They were precepts he’d been learning as part of his adult training, before the Temple had been shattered. Nevertheless, he now stood as close to naked before the Force as he was capable of.
He felt her probe him, felt her mind within his; hesitant at first, but then with greater confidence, and finally with reckless abandon. She was looking for something …
He realized what it was just as he encountered the same emotion in her. She wasn’t hiding it, though. Cautiously, tentatively, she was displaying it, like a war-torn pennant atop a battlement.
The revelation stunned him.
I—I never thought of you that way, he said mentally, letting the Force convey the essence of the message without unnecessary words.
Nor I you. But things change. She looked at him, and even though the tone of her thoughts was cool and controlled, the sense he received through the Force was anything but. It had all the truth and intensity of her passion for freedom and justice. And even as he felt its heat, he could feel it starting to wane, could feel its fires being brought under control.
Wait, he said, but it was too late. Her defenses had slammed back into place—that heavy mental armor, designed to contain the emotional equivalent of a thermal detonator, was aligned and seamless once more. She looked away from him. “As I said,” she told him, “I’ll be around. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired.” Her head lowered to the pillow as her eyes closed.
Jax left the room and wandered for a while, trying to cope with the change in personnel. He felt like a fool—but how was he to have known? His life inside the Temple had afforded him little opportunity to investigate the fairer sex and, while his life outside had offered opportunities aplenty, the class of beings he now ran with either weren’t interested or used sex the same way they used everything else: as a bargaining chip, or a weapon.
He’d looked upon Laranth Tarak as a comrade in arms, but not in every possible sense of the phrase. Jax abruptly understood the Twi’lek’s increasing moodiness and antipathy toward Dejah Duare. There was no way she could compete with the other woman; even without her extensive psychochemical arsenal, the Zeltron was a formidable opponent. She had money, beauty, and a fashion sense that made the top clothiers on the planet lick their chops like starving nexus. Compared with Dejah, Laranth was outclassed on every level.
All she could do was fight. All she had to offer was a heroic heart. All she gave was—everything.
“Something troubling you, Jax?” I-Five’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“He means,” Den’s voice piped in, “that you look spacier than usual.”
Jax blinked. He was down in the waiting area, which at the moment was giving half a dozen or so humans and humanoids places to wait—either for treatment or for news of others in worse shape than they. Den had gotten off with merely a long gash on his right ear, and the droid had sustained no damage at all.
Jax said, “I just saw Dejah and Laranth. They—”
“We heard the startling news from Dejah,” I-Five said. “How is Laranth?”
“Alive and getting well,” said Jax. “That’s the good news.”
As he continued to tell them of Laranth’s decision, a realization struck him with such force that he stopped midsentence and laughed.
“Something funny that we’re missing?” Den wanted to know.
“You might say that,” Jax said. He composed himself, then said in sonorous tones, “Prioritize discreet vigilance anent fugitive recovery operation.”
“That sounds familiar,” Den mused. “Hey, wait a minute—that’s the last thing the Cephalon told us.”
“Exactly,” Jax said. He shook his head. “It was trying to warn us about the bounty hunter. About Aurra Sing. We just figured it out a little after the fact.” He laughed again.
“I thought this was supposed to be a grim and cheerless job,” said a feminine voice from behind them. They turned as one to see Dejah Duare descending a nearby lift tube. She landed and walked toward them. She was wearing a dress that had something in common with the cloud dress of last night, only this one was in more of a liquid state. It was blue, and little wavelets began at her right shoulder and rippled across its length, to stop at her left hip and immediately begin again.
“Instead,” Dejah continued, “I hear laughter. I see smiles. I must admit that, as a Zeltron, this gladdens me.” She stoppd near the Jedi and smiled.
“Nice dress,” he said.
“It’s part of a set. Wait’ll you see the final one—it’s made of fire.”
He grinned. He wasn’t sure if her pheromones were working on him right now, and didn’t really care. All he knew or cared to know was that he felt great. True, there were still problems to solve. There was the ongoing mystery of Vader’s pursuit of him, and what actions he would take to avenge the murder of his father by the Sith. Also, he had not forgotten that realization, borne through the Force, that Anakin Skywalker was still alive. If so, it meant that he would have to find the young Jedi someday and return to him the pyronium nugget. And he had to decide what action to take regarding the bota distillate. All these decisions would have to be made—in time.
For now, however, it was enough to listen to Dejah’s laughter, see her smile, and feel her touch.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Den shake his head and mutter something that sounded like se’lahn. I-Five nodded in agreement. He felt a momentary flare of annoyance before he realized that they didn’t understand. Attitude was everything in this. It was what got you up in the morning, got you through the day alive. He’d much rather have someone like Dejah at his side than a grim and contained Laranth.
Someday they’d see that. Until then—
“Let’s go,” he said. “Rhinann’s there by himself—we’d better make sure he hasn’t auctioned off everything on the Net by now.”
It was the droid, Rhinann realized. The droid was the key, somehow. It alone had been present at all the events. It linked them all together: the mysterious pursuit and slaughter on Coruscant, twenty years ago; the events on the planet Drongar, with the Jedi Barriss Offee; and the recovery of the data concerning the mysterious bota.
The droid was the connection. He knew it; could feel it.
Haninum Tyk Rhinann leaned back in his chair and smiled. It was a formidable puzzle, with some pieces more than two decades old and scattered halfway across the galaxy. And many of those pieces were hidden in places that were not only hard to find, but dangerous to access as well. It was worth it, however. If even a fraction of what he was begining to put together was true, it would be worth every effort and expenditure. With the power it promised, he could reclaim his former glory, and more—he could challenge the Emperor himself.
A challenging puzzle, without a doubt. But the Elomin were good at putting together puzzles.
Very good indeed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Reaves received an Emmy Award for his work on the Batman television animated series. He has worked for DreamWorks, among other studios, and has written fantasy novels and supernatural thrillers. Reaves is the New York Times bestselling author of the Star Wars: Coruscant Nights novels Jedi Twilight and Street of Shadows, and Star Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, as well as the co-writer (with Steve Perry) of Star Wars: Death Star and two Star Wars: MedStar novels: Battle Surgeons and Jedi Healer. He lives in the Los Angeles area.
By Michael Reaves
THE SHATTERED WORLD
THE BURNING REALM
DARKWORLD DETECTIVE
I—ALIEN
STREET MAGIC
NIGHT HUNTER
VOODOO CHILD
DRAGONWORLD (with Byron Preiss)
SWORD OF THE SAMURAI (with Steve Perry)
HELLSTAR (with Steve Perry)
DOME (with Steve Perry)
THE OMEGA CAGE (with Steve Perry)
THONG THE BARBARIAN MEETS THE CYCLE SLUTS OF SATURN (with Steve Perry)
HELL ON EARTH
MR. TWILIGHT (with Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff)
BATMAN: FEAR, ITSELF (with Steven-Elliot Altman)
STAR WARS: DARTH MAUL: SHADOW HUNTER
STAR WARS: MEDSTAR I: BATTLE SURGEONS (with Steve Perry)
STAR WARS: MEDSTAR II: JEDI HEALER (with Steve Perry)
STAR WARS: DEATH STAR (with Steve Perry)
STAR WARS: CORUSCANT NIGHTS I: JEDI TWILIGHT
STAR WARS: CORUSCANT NIGHTS II: STREET OF SHADOWS
STAR WARS: CORUSCANT NIGHTS III: PATTERNS OF FORCE
Anthologies
SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET (co-edited with John Pelan)
Story Collection
THE NIGHT PEOPLE
STAR WARS—The Expanded Universe
You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …
In The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?
Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?
Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?
Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?
All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the Star Wars expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!
Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars novels to learn more.
one
The library was his favorite place in the entirety of the immense Jedi Temple complex. He went there to absorb data as much through the pores of his skin as through any study of the copious amount of information stored there. He frequently went there to think—but just as often he went there to not think.
He was there now—not thinking—and almost as soon as he recognized the place, Jax Pavan also realized that this was a dream. The Temple, he knew, was no more than a chaotic pile of rubble, charred stone, and ashy dust. Order 66 had mandated it, and the horrifying bloodbath that the few remaining Jedi referred to as Flame Night had ensured it.
Yet here he was in one of the many reading rooms within the vast library wing, just as it had been the last time he had seen it—the softly lit shelves that contained books, scrolls, data cubes, and other vessels of knowledge from a thousand worlds; the tables—each in its own pool of illumination—at which Jedi and Padawans studied in silence; the tall, narrow windows that looked out into the central courtyard; the vaulted ceiling that seemed to fly away into eternity. Even as his dreaming gaze took in these things, he felt the pain of their loss … and something else—puzzlement.
This was clearly a Force dream. It had that lucent, almost shimmering quality to it, the utter clarity of presence and sense, the equally clear knowledge that it was a dream. But it was about the past, not the future, for Jax Pavan knew he would never savor the atmosphere of the Jedi library again. His Force dreams had, without exception, been visions of future events … and they had never been this lucid.
He was sitting at one of the tables with a book and a data cube before him. The book was a compilation of philosophical essays by Masters of the Tython Jedi who had first proposed that the Force had a dual nature: Ashla, the creative element, and Bogan, the destructive—light and dark aspects of the same Essence. The data cube contained a treatise of Master Asli Krimsan on the Potentium Perspective, a “heresy” propagated by Jedi Leor Hal that contended—as many had before and since—that there was no dark side to the Force, that the darkness existed within the individual.
Yes, he had studied these two volumes—among others. He supposed that all Padawans studied them at some point in their training, because all entertained questions about the nature of the Force and desired to understand it. Some, he knew, hoped to understand it completely and ultimately; to settle once and for all the millennia-long debate over whether it had one face or two and where the potential for darkness lay—in the Force itself or in the wielder of the Force.
When had he studied these last? What moment had he been returned to in his dream?
Even as he wondered these things, a shadow fell across the objects on the table before him. Someone had come to stand beside him, blocking the light from the windows.
He glanced up.
It was his fellow Padawan and friend Anakin Skywalker. At least he had called Anakin “friend” readily enough, but the truth was that Anakin held himself aloof from the other Padawans. Even in moments of camaraderie he seemed a man apart, as if he had a Force shield around him. Brooding. Jax had called him that once to his face and had drawn laughter that he, through his connection to the Force, had known to be false.
Now Anakin stood above him, his back to the windows, his face in shadow.
“Hey, you’re blocking my light.” The words popped out of Jax’s mouth without his having intended to say them. But he had said them that day, and he knew what was coming next.
Anakin didn’t answer. He simply held out his hand as if to drop something to the tabletop. Jax put out his own hand palm-up to receive it.
“It” was a pyronium nugget the size of the first joint of his thumb. Even in the half-light it pulsed with an opalescence that seemed to arise from deep within, cycling from white through the entire visible spectrum to black, then back again. Somewhere—Jax just couldn’t remember where—he had heard that pyronium was a source of immense power, of almost unlimited power. He had thought that apocryphal and absurd. Power was a vague word and meant many things to many people.
“What’s this for?” he asked now as he had then, looking up into his friend’s face.
“For safekeeping while I’m on Tatooine,” Anakin said. His mouth curved wryly. “Or maybe it’s a gift.”
“Well, which is it?” Jax asked.
The answer then had been a shrug. Now it was a cryptic phrase uttered in a deep, rumbling voice not at all like the Padawan’s own: “With this, journey beyond the Force.”
Jax laughed. “The Force is the beginning, middle, and end of all things. How does one go beyond the infinite?”
Instead of replying, the Anakin of his dream began to laugh. To Jax’s horror, Anakin’s flesh blackened, crisping and shriveling as if from intense heat; peeling away from the muscle and bone beneath. His grin twisted horribly, becoming a skull’s rictus. Worst of all, laughter still tumbled from the seared lips.
Jax woke suddenly and completely, bathed in cold sweat.
With this, journey beyond the Force?
That was impossible. It made no sense—and what was with the burning? He shivered, his skin creeping beneath its clammy film of sweat as he recalled one of the rumors of where and how Anakin was supposed to have died on Mustafar—thrown into the magma stream by … no one knew who.
“Is something wrong, Jax?”
Jax glanced over from his sweat-soaked bed mat to where I-Five stood sentry, his photoreceptors gleaming with muted light.
Jax hesitated for only a moment. It might seem a futile monologue to discuss a dream with a droid, but I-5YQ was no ordinary droid, and even if he were, there was value to talking out the puzzling dream even with a supposedly nonsentient being. If nothing else, Jax reasoned that sorting through the images, actions, and words aloud would help him understand them.
He sat up, leaning against the wall of his small room in the Poloda Place conapt he shared with the rest of his motley team. “I dreamed.”
“I’ve read that all living things do,” I-Five observed blandly.
Jax was seized with sudden curiosity: Did I-Five dream? Was that even possible? He wanted to ask but quelled the urge, instead launching into a detailed retelling of his own nighttime visitation.
When Jax at last exhausted the account, I-Five was silent for a moment, his photoreceptors flickering slightly in a way that suggested the blinking of human eyes. Finally he said, “May I point out that this would seem to contradict the knowledge you received through the Force some months ago that Skywalker was still alive?”
“Well, yeah.” Jax ran fingers through his sweat-damp hair. “Although he might have been injured on Mustafar, I suppose.”
“Possibly, although other possibilities abound. It might have a more metaphysical meaning, for example. Or it might be an expression of your own inner fears.”
“That’s not usually how Force dreams work, but I suppose it’s possible. I’ve never had one like this before,” Jax admitted. “I mean, a dream of the past, rather than the future, for one thing. And an edited past at that. Anakin didn’t say anything about the Force when he gave me the pyronium, he just asked me to keep it for him while he went to Tatooine. And I think I’d have noticed if he burst into flames,” he added wryly.
I-Five’s “eyes” flickered again, seeming to convey amusement.
The door chime sounded; Jax checked his chrono, but I-Five was ahead of him.
“It’s oh seven hundred hours.”
It wasn’t a terribly early hour this deep in downlevel Coruscant where few acknowledged either day or night, but most sentients seemed to agree that some hours were impolite for calling on one’s neighbor.
Jax rose and padded out of his room into the larger main living area, noticing that the rest of his companions were either asleep or out. I-Five followed him.
As he moved to the front door of the conapt, Jax sent out questing tendrils of the Force to the being on the opposite side of the barrier. In his mind’s eye he saw the energy there, but he perceived no telltale threads of the Force emanating from or connecting to them.
Every Jedi experienced and perceived the Force in intensely personal ways. Jax’s particular sensibilities caused him to perceive it as threads of light or darkness that enrobed or enwrapped an individual and connected him or her to the Force itself and to other beings and things. In this case there seemed to be no threads … though there was a hint of a, well, a smudge—that was the only word Jax could think of that even vaguely fit.
Curious for the second time that morning, he opened the door, smiling a little as I-Five stepped to one side to take up a defensive position where he would not immediately be seen by whoever was outside.
In the narrow, starkly lit corridor stood a short, stocky male Sakiyan whom Jax guessed to be in his sixties, dressed in clean but threadbare clothing. He blinked at Jax’s appearance—he was wearing a loose pair of sleep pants and hadn’t bothered to put on a tunic.
“I—I apologize for the hour,” the Sakiyan stammered, blinking round eyes that seemed extraordinarily pale in his bronze face, “but the matter is urgent. I need to speak to Jax Pavan.”
Jax scrutinized the Sakiyan again, more thoroughly and with every sense he possessed. Sensing no ill intent, he introduced himself. “I’m Jax Pavan.”
The visitor’s face brightened and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. “By any chance, do you happen to own a protocol droid of the Eye-Fivewhycue line?”
“I don’t ‘own’ him,” Jax replied cautiously. “But yes, he’s here. What do you want with him, er …?”
The Sakiyan executed a slight bow. “I apologize for my extreme lack of manners. My name is—”
“Tuden Sal,” I-Five said, stepping out of the shadows beside the door. The droid pointed an index finger at the Sakiyan. A red light gleamed at the tip—the muzzle of one of the twin lasers incorporated into his hands. His photoreceptors gleamed brightly. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this …”
two
Kajin Savaros stood in the narrow cleft beneath a support pier somewhere in the lower levels of a cloud-scraper on the long axis of Ploughtekal Market and peered out at the rabble in the bazaar below. He wasn’t sure what level he was on, truth be told. He only knew it was dark, noisome, and anonymous.
This last quality—if Ploughtekal could be said to possess “qualities”—was what had made Kaj seek it out. That, and the ease with which he could sustain himself here. Or at least it had been easy until his narrow escape from an Inquisitor the day before.
He shivered at the memory of that as he weighed the gnawing of his empty belly against the risk that somewhere in this crowd of unknowns might very well be someone watchful, someone suspicious, someone who might know what he looked like and be steeped enough in the Force to sense his presence. He had been hungry—just like now—and cadging food several levels up in the sprawling, many-layered marketplace. The Inquisitor had seen him coax a street vendor into giving him a skewer full of lovely smoked fleek belly strips, and had cornered him before he could even half devour it.
Even in his fear, the thought of the meat made him salivate. He needed to eat, but …
Kaj glanced up and down the overrun bazaar. Shadow and light danced in an ever-changing roil of smoke from cookpots and braziers; multicolored lights strung along kiosks twinkled and winked to tempt the eye and draw in the potential customers who thronged the thoroughfare. There was no sign of the Inquisitor or another like him—they made a point of remaining incognito.
It would seem that the sheer staggering amount of sentients, human and otherwise, that populated the cityplanet would afford more than enough protection for the individual who sought a lifetime of anonymity. Coruscant—Kaj shook his head in annoyance, reminding himself again to refer to the newly renamed ecumenopolis as Imperial Center in both thought and speech—Imperial Center was home to literally trillions of beings from across the length and breadth of the galaxy, and finding a single one among them all was more difficult by far than finding a single grain of sand on Tatooine, Bakkah, and all the other desert worlds combined. Hidden in the teeming multitude, he was safe—as long as he didn’t use the Force.
Which was no more difficult than, say, swallowing white-hot lava.
When he went for some time without actively using the Force, but instead simply kept it pent up within, it burned. It was like having a big chunk of fire lodged behind his sternum. He found it hard to breathe, harder to sit still. It quite literally raised his internal temperature; after a few days Kaj found himself sweating and running a low-grade fever. If he kept it bottled down much longer than that—say, another week or so … well, he’d only done that once. When he’d woken up in the middle of the night, he’d felt at first blessed relief—followed by heart-stopping fear.
The bed of the cheap resiblock he’d rented for the night had been soaked with sweat, and in the far wall a circle a meter wide had been charred into the paint.
After that, Kaj tried to “bleed off” whenever he felt the Force building up out of control. He concentrated on small telekinetics, levitating pieces of food or other objects, as those seemed to provide the most relief for the amount of effort expended. So far, it had worked—but he still quaked with the fear of being sensed by one of the malevolent Inquisitors every time he had to do it.
Kaj’s gaze wandered back to a kiosk some twenty meters distant, at which several shoppers were haggling with the vendor over the assortment of produce—most of it illegal. The kiosk had food bins on three sides and was open at the back. That was unfortunate, but the booth next door had a tatty fabric awning, one corner of which was tied down not far from the back of the produce vendor’s kiosk.
With his usual front-door methods rendered too risky, Kaj decided on a less direct approach. He pulled the cowl of his cloak up around his face and eased into the crowd. The stew of energies, aromas, and stenches flowed around him; the heat of someone’s regard when he accidentally bumped into her caused him to cower. He tamped down the anger that seemed to crawl to the surface of his mind when he was confronted by large crowds of people intent on their own business. He supposed he was no different in that from any of the beings here.
But he was different in other ways.
He drew level with the awning and ducked sideways out of the flow of traffic, making his way around to the back of the booth. It was even darker back here than in the shadowed arcade, and he took advantage of that to slip into the deeper blackness of the narrow passage that ran the width of the booth between its fabric back wall and the ferrocrete surface of a cloudscraper’s dingy exterior.
When he emerged from the narrow slit on the other side of the booth—which, from the wild dance of aromas, he realized was an herbalist’s shop—he found himself less than three paces from a row of fruit bins containing little that was familiar and much that was not. Not wanting to risk discovery for something that might not even be edible to a human, he scanned the bins for something familiar. Finally he saw what he was looking for: a basket of daro root.
Mouth watering, he edged beneath the tightly pulled corner of the awning and crouched, his eyes on the treasure. Daro root grew on several worlds that humans had colonized. His had been one of them. As a child he had developed a taste for the sweet, creamy golden flesh of the root and now, as hungry as he was, he was sure it would provide the most delicious meal in recent memory.
A gaggle of shoppers was passing the kiosk, occasionally obscuring the daro from sight. He willed them to find the produce here uninspiring and to go elsewhere.
They did.
Kaj leaned forward and raised a hand toward the prize. Sweat trickled into his eyes, startling him and disrupting his concentration. He swore, swiped the salty rivulet away, and reached out again. His hand was shaking, he realized, and not with hunger. His encounter with the Inquisitor yesterday had been much more than merely disturbing. He was scared, plain and simple—scared of doing anything to call attention to himself. Their attention, anyway. He flattered himself that he was well capable of handling the unwelcome attention of ordinary people. But Inquisitors were not ordinary people. They were the Emperor’s watchdogs, and they had powers he could only guess at.
He steeled himself. Two seconds. It would take only two seconds to procure a couple of pieces of the alluring food. He would open the way to the Force and then close it, quickly. Simple. It would be simple.
Resolved, he wiped the sweat from his palm, stretched out his hand, and called. A daro atop the pile wiggled, then rolled down the mound of produce to drop to the ground unnoticed. He called again, and it flew unerringly to his hand.
His heart, which had been beating out a wild tattoo in his chest, calmed. Not bad. And not an Inquisitor in sight … or sense. Encouraged, he decided to get more. He tucked the fat, golden root into an inner pocket of his voluminous cloak, raised his hand, and—
He felt it then, a sick trickle of dread coursing down his spine: the sudden eddy in the Force as someone nearby groped for the one who had just used it.
Kaj sensed purposeful movement in the crowded avenue before the produce vendor’s stall, saw people moving swiftly out of the way of something or someone who was in a great deal of haste. He bit back his fear and threw a desperate, sharp salvo of thought at the bin of daro root. Amplified by a charge of adrenaline, the blast hit the bin like a burst from a repulsor field. Daro roots exploded into the air and cascaded to the ground, rolling every which way. Patrons milling about the booth reacted haphazardly, sidestepping, ducking, bobbing, and weaving to get out of the way, slipping on splattered fruit and stumbling out into the overcrowded avenue.
Kaj used the distraction to scoop up two more of the precious gourd-shaped roots before he hurriedly withdrew, scurrying rodent-like along behind three or four stalls in the row before finally emerging at the corner into a cross-alley. He’d secreted the daro roots on his person by that time and glided into the flow of foot traffic, straightening his cloak.
He smiled grimly, a strange mixture of relief and exhilaration flooding him with warmth. Once again he had barely avoided detection; once again he had eluded the Emperor’s minions. He had a swift vision of himself as a much-sought-after prize. A shadowy rogue Forcesensitive dancing on the fringes of society, always one step ahead of the Inquisitorius and its frustrated operatives. He could almost see himself leaping between the sky-raking buildings, flitting along ledges—an elusive silhouette. A powerful possessor of the Force.
A Jedi.
A sudden, almost overwhelming surge of anger arose in Kaj’s breast to swamp his relief and drown his self-congratulatory daydreams. Once, in a more enlightened age, he would have become a Jedi and been instructed in the ways of the Force, honing his relatively newborn skills—skills that had fully awakened only this past year. But the Jedi Temple lay in ruins, and the Order had been scattered all across the galaxy—if there were any left alive. He alternately hoped for and despaired of that … and raged at the universe and the Force itself.
He gritted his teeth, trying to suppress the seething anger that burned through his veins.
No. There are no Jedi left, he told himself. I’m alone. Alone.
Alone with this power that grew inside him, demanding to be used. He both gloried in it and was terrified of it. Especially in moments like these, when resentful rage burned in him. A rage that had no target at which to vent itself—except, perhaps, the Inquisitors. He hated and feared those shadowy beings, but it was not safe to attract them—not safe to target them with his anger. So Kaj’s rage remained directionless, aimed at no one—and everyone. He held it tightly to him, because to give in to it, to allow it to escape his careful control, would be as good as sending up a giant flare that said to the Inquisitors, Come get me!
Kaj stepped out of the street as a hover-lorry approached, sucking himself tightly up against a stained and pitted support girder that had been erected to shore up the ruined façade of what had once been a gaming parlor.
A tug of awareness made itself felt through the coils of control he struggled to maintain. He tilted his head up and glanced across the way. A man—a human—was staring at him from the dark, crooked doorway of the building opposite.
Before he could think better of it, Kaj erased the man’s memory of him, using the Force to slide into the other’s mind and rearrange his thoughts. He’d never attempted such a thing before, but it was easier by far than he’d expected it to be.
He scooted sideways and insinuated himself into a mixed group of aliens as the hover-lorry blocked his view of the staring man. With just a little more effort, he knew he could have made the other step out in front of the vehicle. It would have been easy.
Too easy.
He shuddered, put his head down, and immersed himself in the crowd.
Den Dhur stumbled sleepily into the central room of the conapt, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. When his vision cleared, the sight that met him stopped him dead in his tracks. In frozen tableau he saw Jax, I-Five, and a strange Sakiyan standing just inside the open front doorway. I-Five was pointing at the Sakiyan as if delivering a lecture … which was what one might think if one didn’t know about the specialized lasers built into each of the droid’s forefingers.
Den knew about them, however.
He shook himself more thoroughly awake, resisting the temptation to rub his eyes a second time. Had I-Five fried a circuit? And what the frip was Jax thinking? This guy could be a potential customer—this was no way to treat a potential customer.
“Uh,” Den said. “Guys? Who’s our new friend?”
The droid’s photoreceptors blinked in a gesture so alive that Den batted his own eyes before he could resist the urge.
Jax cleared his throat. “I-Five?”
The droid made a sound like a human sigh and lowered his arm. “I’ve obviously been around organics too long—I’ve picked up some bad habits. Such as holding grudges.”
“Okay …” Jax said. “May I ask why you’re holding a grudge against our guest?”
“Yeah,” Den agreed, bustling farther into the room. “In fact, why don’t we invite our guest to come in and sit down, get him a drink, and ask him to explain what he might need from us?”
“What I need, first and foremost,” said the Sakiyan as he moved to sit uneasily on the utilitarian couch that graced one gray wall, “is to apologize to I-Five.”
Den stared at Tuden Sal. “You what?”
“Apparently,” Jax said, “Tuden Sal and I-Five have some kind of history.”
The Jedi had perched on the arm of the couch, from which vantage point he could watch both the Sakiyan and I-Five. Wise of him, Den thought. He crossed the room to hand their guest the glass of water he’d just drawn from the tap. The Sakiyan stared at the glass as if he’d never seen anything like it before, and Den had a momentary panic attack, trying to remember if Sakiyans had some allergy to or other problem with water.
But then Tuden Sal accepted the glass, issuing a wheezy laugh as he did so. “History indeed—or the lack of it, in I-Five’s case. It seems rather odd to me, too, I must admit. I’m still not quite used to the idea that I-Five, is—for want of a better term—self-aware.”
“Self-aware,” said I-Five drily, “is a perfectly good term, thank you.”
Tuden Sal nodded. “Yes. I’d forgotten how perfectly good.” He looked directly at the droid, who stood facing him—probably, Den thought, about two subroutines away from firing up his lasers again.
The Sakiyan lowered his eyes and took a moment to straighten the folds of the calf-length coat he wore over his once elegant tunic. Then he looked up at I-Five again. “I’m sorry, I-Five, for what I did to you. I was … shortsighted and selfish.”
“You can add to that disloyal, disreputable, unscrupulous, and cruel,” I-Five told him. “You were, in a word, wrong. You can have no idea what your action ultimately cost the Jedi and the Republic.”
The Sakiyan closed his deep-set eyes momentarily, veiling his thoughts. “No. I don’t believe I can.”
Den pulled himself up into the window embrasure adjacent to the couch. He favored this spot because it gave him the advantage of height—a rare perspective for a native of Sullust—and allowed him to study other people’s faces from a proper angle. “This is all very cozy,” he said, letting his short legs dangle over the windowsill, “but would one of you mind clarifying why this apology is necessary?”
I-Five canted his head pointedly at Tuden Sal, who cleared his throat and rearranged his coat yet again. “Some years ago,” he said, “a … a friend asked me to make sure I-Five and some data he was carrying got to the Jedi Temple here on Coruscant.”
Den didn’t need the Force to see the effect of those words on Jax. The young Jedi stiffened.
“My father. My father, Lorn Pavan, asked you to get I-Five to the Jedi.”
Tuden Sal nodded. “Yes. I didn’t realize at the time that he … that it was something in the nature of a dying wish. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate that Lorn trusted me with the task because he expected not to live much longer. Unfortunately, he was correct in that expectation.”
“Why didn’t you carry out that wish?” Jax asked, his voice hushed.
Den glanced at I-Five. Though he gave no outward indication of tension or increased interest, his friend knew that the droid had been waiting for a resolution to this mystery for over two decades.
The Sakiyan spread his hands in the universal sign of bewilderment. “Quite simply, I saw a profit to be made from the droid, and with the hubris that often comes with success, I figured I could kill two mynocks with one blast. I had intended to deliver the holocron I-Five was carrying to the Jedi as Lorn had asked, but I first planned on having the droid mindwiped and reprogrammed as a bodyguard for use during my dealings with Black Sun. He had certain … modifications I had never seen in any protocol droid—not in any droid, come to it. Modifications I hadn’t even realized were possible.”
“Yet you failed to note the most significant of them,” said I-Five.
“I did,” Sal admitted. “Frankly, I couldn’t believe what Lorn told me about you. I wish now that I had not been so … shortsighted.”
“Traitorous,” I-Five said simultaneously.
Den had to admit that I-Five’s characterization was closer to what he’d been thinking. How could someone behave that treacherously toward a supposed friend? Den hoped he’d never become so mercenary or so jaded that he failed to put the welfare of his friends or his world before his own short-term benefits.
Tuden Sal sighed. “I can’t deny it. But I did plan on getting the holocron to the Temple. I did.”
“The best of intentions, I’ve found,” said the droid, “are by themselves seldom enough to topple tyrants.”
There came a silence, which was verging on uncomfortable when Jax asked, “Then what happened?”
“I had my fingers in several pies at the time—not all of them legal. I sent I-Five to be reprogrammed, then returned to my business offices and discovered that a competitor had instigated a hostile takeover of my companies—every last one of them. I went from riches to rags virtually overnight. Quite simply, I didn’t get the holocron to the Jedi Council because I no longer had the means to do so. I was under siege. I had to go into hiding and liquidate most of my remaining holdings and property—including I-Five, whom I traded to a spice smuggler with his memories wiped.”
He paused to regard the droid with obvious respect. “Or so I had thought. I had spared no expense, ordered the most thorough quantum cleansing available. Apparently I-Five possesses subroutines and resources that are proof even to that.”
“It took me a very long time,” the droid said with harsh emphasis on the last three words, “but I was at last able to recover my full memory.”
The Sakiyan shook his head. “That should not have been possible. And yet, here you are. And here am I. Unlike you, I have never managed to claw my way back. Eventually, I gave up trying. Especially once I discovered that the takeover of my businesses was not, shall we say, an idea original to my competitor. I confronted him, some years down the line, and learned that he had been bank-rolled by then-Senator Palpatine himself. My ‘friend’ was essentially acting as a proxy, though I daresay he was allowed to keep a good deal of what he took.”
“Why?” Jax asked. “What did you have that the Emperor wanted?”
“I suspect I was simply an easy target,” Sal said, bitterness dripping from each word. “My financial circumstances made me vulnerable, and Palpatine, while by no means in desperate straits, like all politicians preferred to use someone else’s money to finance his governmental takeover.” He smiled a hard, painful smile. “You know what they say: ‘It’s not personal—’ ”
“ ‘—it’s just business,’ ” Den finished. Yes, they’d all heard those words before.
“And I have, I must admit, used, if not those very words, certainly the spirit behind them, more than once. But I was never stupid enough to cross the government.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was that very hesitancy on my part that made me seem easy prey. Whatever the reason, the new regime ruined me. Worse than that, they blacklisted me and made it impossible for me to recover. Even Black Sun wouldn’t do business with me, which has implications I’m reluctant to think about.” He hesitated, then added, “It wasn’t just the businesses, though the gods of misfortune know how devastating that was. No, I also lost my family—my mate, my children.”
“Ah,” said I-Five. “Ironic, isn’t it, how fickle people can be. Even those you expect to be loyal.”
“It wasn’t fickleness,” Tuden Sal said with some asperity. “It was fear. I didn’t just lose my visibility, I lost the ability to dare visibility. There is still a bounty on my head, I’m sure of it, though I’ve never been able to confirm it. When someone attempted to kidnap my youngest child, I sent my family offworld. I had no choice.”
“And you’ve been living down here, lying low?” Jax shook his head. “I hope you weren’t hoping to hide out with us. I’ve got a price on my head, too. And like you, I don’t know why.”
“I’m through lying low,” announced the Sakiyan. “I’m fighting back. I’ve joined the Whiplash, which is how I came to find you.” He nodded at Jax.
“You joined the Whiplash?” Jax repeated. “For the purpose of finding I-Five?”
Den well understood the skepticism in Jax’s voice. The Whiplash—the underground organization of which Den and his companions were a part—was dedicated to undermining the Empire’s doings and rescuing its victims. It was an organization that thrived on secrecy to the extent that its operatives often didn’t communicate openly for long periods of time, were informed of missions on a need-to-know basis, and did not admit new “members” without having first subjected them to stiff scrutiny.
“No,” the Sakiyan answered. “For the purpose of fighting the Empire. Finding you and I-Five was serendipitous. I had given up on finding you. In fact, I was convinced you were dead and the droid had been broken up for parts by some yokel who had no idea what he was holding. I would never have found you if my first assignment with the Whiplash hadn’t introduced me to Laranth Tarak.”
Jax reacted visibly to the mention of the Twi’lek’s name, but before he could do much more than gape like a Sullustan Fluke fish, I-Five interjected: “Which begs the question—why have you found us?”
The Sakiyan was suddenly quivering with unwholesome excitement. Or at least the glint in his pale eyes made it seem unwholesome to Den.
“I have a mission for I-Five. One for which his special modifications—specifically his concealed weaponry and his lack of certain … standard inhibitions—would suit him ideally.”
“And that would be?” asked I-Five.
“You, my old friend,” said the Sakiyan, smiling for the first time, “would make the ideal assassin.”
“You want I-Five to assassinate somebody?” Jax shook his head. “That’s not the sort of mission the Whiplash usually involves itself in. We protect people, extricate them from unhealthy situations, find them safe passage offworld. We don’t indulge people’s vendettas.”
“This could be seen as something in the nature of a personal mission,” Sal admitted. “Though I assure you it will serve all lovers of freedom, including the Jedi, in ways you can’t imagine. With I-Five’s modifications and the anonymity that comes with being a droid … well, there couldn’t be a more perfect liquidator.”
“Now, just a moment here.” Den raised his hands and slid down from the window embrasure, noting as he did that the wan light falling through it from outside—a weak trickle of half-dead sunlight from above and artificial illumination from below—made his shadow on the ferrocrete floor loom many times his real height. He was glad of that, because he needed to feel bigger just now. Tuden Sal’s last words had turned his insides to quivering gel. “I-Five, an assassin? What kind of sick nonsense is that? He may be just an anonymous automaton to you, but to me he’s … he’s …”
Den hesitated, realizing that he had never articulated what I-Five was to him. He also realized that the droid’s ocular units were trained right on him. “He’s my friend, okay? And Jax’s friend. And we don’t want to see him put in harm’s way with the callous disregard you’d show a—a …”
“A machine?” finished I-Five with a tone of voice that in an organic would have been accompanied by a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah. He admitted it himself not a minute ago, Five. You’re not a programmable toy. We can’t just pump you full of code and send you into a dangerous situation as if you were some expendable piece of equipment. You have volition. You’re a person.”
Den felt those words in that moment as perhaps he never had before, knowing to the soles of his boots that he would not—could not—send I-Five into a potentially no-win situation alone. A swift chill cascaded down from the crown of his head. And just what did that imply? That he would volunteer to go along?
I-Five’s gleaming metal face was, as always, expressionless. “Yes,” the droid said, “as you point out, I have volition. Which means that I have both the capacity and the right to determine, in consultation with the team, of course”—he tilted his head toward Jax—“what missions I will or will not undertake. But …” He hesitated; something he rarely, if ever, did. “Your concern is noted, Den, and the sentiment behind it mutual.”
I-Five then shifted his attention to Tuden Sal so suddenly that Den felt as if a physical support had been knocked from under him.
“Obviously before we can entertain the idea of such a mission,” I-Five told the Sakiyan, “we need to understand it more fully and weigh its potential for good or ill. Who, precisely, do you want me to assassinate?”
Tuden Sal smiled, and there was an almost mischievous glint in his eye now. “Allow me to test your knowledge of arcane historical esoterica. Have you ever heard of the Monarchomechs?”
I-Five did not hesitate. “Yes. An obscure sect of fanatics out in the Eastern Expansion around four hundred standard years ago. They opposed the absolute monarchy of their system of worlds, and promulgated tyrannicide. Like the B’omarr monks of Tatooine, they were not droids but cyborgs—essentially encapsulated organic brains in robotic bodies. The name, in Middle Yutanese, is a play on the portmanteau, meaning ‘killers of monarchs.’ ” I-Five’s voice was somewhat more subdued, almost speculative, as he continued, “You want me to terminate Emperor Palpatine.”
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.
The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.
Then, a thousand years before A New Hope and the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi defeated the Sith at the Battle of Ruusan, decimating the so-called Brotherhood of Darkness that was the heart of the Sith Empire—and most of its power.
One Sith Lord survived—Darth Bane—and his vision for the Sith differed from that of his predecessors. He instituted a new doctrine: No longer would the followers of the dark side build empires or amass great armies of Force-users. There would be only two Sith at a time: a Master and an apprentice. From that time on, the Sith remained in hiding, biding their time and plotting their revenge, while the rest of the galaxy enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace, so long and strong that the Republic eventually dismantled its standing armies.
But while the Republic seemed strong, its institutions had begun to rot. Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, until the corporations reduced many planets to raw materials for factories and entire species became subjects for exploitation. Individual Jedi continued to defend the Republic’s citizens and obey the will of the Force, but the Jedi Order to which they answered grew increasingly out of touch. And a new Sith mastermind, Darth Sidious, at last saw a way to restore Sith domination over the galaxy and its inhabitants, and quietly worked to set in motion the revenge of the Sith …
If you’re a reader new to the Old Republic era, here are three great starting points:
• The Old Republic: Deceived, by Paul S. Kemp: Kemp tells the tale of the Republic’s betrayal by the Sith Empire, and features Darth Malgus, an intriguing, complicated villain.
• Knight Errant, by John Jackson Miller: Alone in Sith territory, the headstrong Jedi Kerra Holt seeks to thwart the designs of an eccentric clan of fearsome, powerful, and bizarre Sith Lords.
• Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, by Drew Karpyshyn: A portrait of one of the most famous Sith Lords, from his horrifying childhood to an adulthood spent in the implacable pursuit of vengeance.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Old Republic era.
CHAPTER 1
SHIGAR KONSHI FOLLOWED the sound of blasterfire through Coruscant’s old districts. He never stumbled, never slipped, never lost his way, even through lanes that were narrow and crowded with years of detritus that had settled slowly from the levels above. Cables and signs swayed overhead, hanging so low in places that Shigar was forced to duck beneath them. Tall and slender, with one blue chevron on each cheek, the Jedi apprentice moved with grace and surety surprising for his eighteen years.
At the core of his being, however, he seethed. Master Nikil Nobil’s decision had cut no less deeply for being delivered by hologram from the other side of the galaxy.
“The High Council finds Shigar Konshi unready for Jedi trials.”
The decision had shocked him, but Shigar knew better than to speak. The last thing he wanted to do was convey the shame and resentment he felt in front of the Council.
“Tell him why,” said Grand Master Satele Shan, standing at his side with hands folded firmly before her. She was a full head shorter than Shigar but radiated an indomitable sense of self. Even via holoprojector, she made Master Nobil, an immense Thisspiasian with full ceremonial beard, shift uncomfortably on his tail.
“We—that is, the Council—regard your Padawan’s training as incomplete.”
Shigar flushed. “In what way, Master Nobil?”
His Master silenced him with a gentle but irresistible telepathic nudge. “He is close to attaining full mastery,” she assured the Council. “I am certain that it is only a matter of time.”
“A Jedi Knight is a Jedi Knight in all respects,” said the distant Master. “There are no exceptions, even for you.”
Master Satele nodded her acceptance of the decision. Shigar bit his tongue. She said she believed in him, so why did she not overrule the decision? She didn’t have to submit to the Council. If he weren’t her Padawan, would she have spoken up for him then?
His unsettled feelings were not hidden as well as he would have liked.
“Your lack of self-control reveals itself in many ways,” said Master Nobil to him in a stern tone. “Take your recent comments to Senator Vuub regarding the policies of the Resource Management Council. We may all agree that the Republic’s handling of the current crisis is less than perfect, but anything short of the utmost political discipline is unforgivable at this time. Do you understand?”
Shigar bowed his head. He should’ve known that the slippery Neimoidian was after more than just his opinion when she’d sidled up to him and flattered him with praise. When the Empire had invaded Coruscant, it had only handed the world back to the Republic in exchange for a large number of territorial concessions elsewhere. Ever since then, supply lines had been strained. That Shigar was right, and the RMC a hopelessly corrupt mess, putting the lives of billions at risk from something much worse than war—starvation, disease, disillusionment—simply didn’t count in some circles.
Master Nobil’s forbidding visage softened. “You are naturally disappointed. I understand. Know that the Grand Master has spoken strongly in favor of you for a long time. In all respects but this one do we defer to her judgment. She cannot sway our combined decision, but she has drawn our attention. We will be watching your progress closely, with high expectations.”
The holoconference had ended there, and Shigar felt the same conflicted emptiness in the depths of Coruscant as he had then. Unready? High expectations? The Council was playing a game with him—or so it felt—batting him backward and forward like a felinx in a cage. Would he ever be free to follow his own path?
Master Satele understood his feelings better than he did. “Go for a walk,” she had told him, putting a hand on each shoulder and holding his gaze long enough to make sure he understood her intentions. She was giving him an opportunity to cool down, not dismissing him. “I need to talk to Supreme Commander Stantorrs anyway. Let’s meet later in Union Cloisters.”
“Yes, Master.”
And so he was walking and stewing. Somewhere inside him, he knew, had to be the strength to rise above this temporary setback, the discipline to bring the last threads of his talent into a unified design. But on this occasion, his instincts were leading him away from stillness, not toward it.
The sound of blasterfire grew louder ahead of him.
Shigar stopped in an alley that stank like a woodoo’s leavings. A swinging light flashed fitfully on and off in the level above, casting rubbish and rot in unwanted relief. An ancient droid watched with blinking red eyes from a filthy niche, rusted fingers protectively gathering wires and servos back into its gaping chest plate. The cold war with the Empire was being conducted far away from this alley and its unhappy resident, but its effects were keenly felt. If he wanted to be angry at the state of the Republic, he couldn’t have chosen a better place for it.
The shooting intensified. His hand reached for the grip of his lightsaber.
There is no emotion, he told himself. There is only peace.
But how could there be peace without justice? What did the Jedi Council, sitting comfortably in their new Temple on Tython, know about that?
The sound of screams broke him out of his contemplative trance. Between one heartbeat and the next he was gone, the emerald fire of his lightsaber lingering a split instant behind him, brilliant in the gloom.
LARIN MOXLA PAUSED to tighten the belly strap on her armor. The wretched thing kept coming loose, and she didn’t want to take any chances. Until the justicars got there, she was the only thing standing between the Black Sun gangsters and the relatively innocent residents of Gnawer’s Roost. It sounded like half of it had been shot to pieces already.
Satisfied that nothing too vulnerable was exposed, she peered out from cover and hefted her modified snub rifle. Illegal on Coruscant except for elite special forces commandos, it featured a powerful sniper sight, which she trained on the Black Sun safehouse. The main entrance was deserted, and there was no sign of the roof guard. That was unexpected. Still the blasterfire came from within the fortified building. Could it be a trap of some kind?
Wishing as always that she had backup, she lowered the rifle and lifted her helmeted head into full view. No one took a potshot at her. No one even noticed her. The only people she could see were locals running for cover. But for the commotion coming from within, the street could have been completely deserted.
Trap or no trap, she decided to get closer. Rattling slightly, and ignoring the places where her secondhand armor chafed, Larin hustled low and fast from cover to cover until she was just meters from the front entrance. The weapons-fire was deafening now, and screaming came with it. She tried to identify the weapons. Blaster pistols and rifles of several different makes; at least one floor-mounted cannon; two or three vibrosaws; and beneath all that, a different sound. A roaring, as of superheated gases jetting violently through a nozzle.
A flamethrower.
No gang she’d heard of used fire. The risk of a blaze spreading everywhere was too high. Only someone from outside would employ a weapon like that. Only someone who didn’t care what damage he left in his wake.
Something exploded in an upper room, sending a shower of bricks and dust into the street. Larin ducked instinctively, but the wall held. If it had collapsed, she would have been buried under meters of rubble.
Her left hand wanted to count down, and she let it. It felt wrong otherwise. Moving in—in three … two … one …
Silence fell.
She froze. It was as though someone had pulled a switch. One minute, nine kinds of chaos had been unfolding inside the building. Now there was nothing.
She pulled her hand in, countdown forgotten. She wasn’t going anywhere until she knew what had just happened and who was involved.
Something collapsed inside the building. Larin gripped her rifle more tightly. Footsteps crunched toward the entrance. One set of feet: that was all.
She stood up in full view of the entrance, placed herself side-on to reduce the target she made, and trained her rifle on the darkened doorway.
The footsteps came closer—unhurried, confident, heavy. Very heavy.
The moment she saw movement in the doorway, she cried out in a firm voice, “Hold it right there.”
Booted feet assumed a standing position. Armored shins in metallic gray and green.
“Move slowly forward, into the light.”
The owner of the legs took one step, then two, revealing a Mandalorian so tall his helmeted head brushed the top of the doorway.
“That’s far enough.”
“For what?”
Larin maintained her cool in the face of that harsh, inhuman voice, although it was difficult. She’d seen Mandalorians in action before, and she knew how woefully equipped she was to deal with one now. “For you to tell me what you were doing in there.”
The domed head inclined slightly. “I was seeking information.”
“So you’re a bounty hunter?”
“Does it matter what I am?”
“It does when you’re messing up my people.”
“You do not look like a member of the Black Sun syndicate.”
“I never said I was.”
“You haven’t said you aren’t, either.” The massive figure shifted slightly, finding a new balance. “I’m seeking information concerning a woman called Lema Xandret.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“I thought I was the one asking questions here.”
“You thought wrong.”
The Mandalorian raised one arm to point at her. A hatch in his sleeve opened, revealing the flamethrower she’d heard in action earlier. She steadied her grip and tried desperately to remember where the weak points on Mandalorian armor were—if there were any …
“Don’t,” said a commanding voice to her left.
Larin glanced automatically and saw a young man in robes standing with one hand raised in the universal stop signal.
The sight of him dropped her guard momentarily.
A sheet of powerful flame roared at her. She ducked, and it seared the air bare millimeters over her head.
She let off a round that ricocheted harmlessly from the Mandalorian’s chest plate and rolled for cover. It was hard to say what surprised her more: a Jedi down deep in the bowels of Coruscant, or the fact that he had the facial tattoos of a Kiffu native, just like she did.
SHIGAR TOOK IN THE confrontation with a glance. He’d never fought a Mandalorian before, but he had been carefully instructed in the art by his Master. They were dangerous, very dangerous, and he almost had second thoughts about taking this one on. Even together, he and a single battered-looking soldier would hardly be sufficient.
Then flame arced across the head of the soldier, and his instincts took over. The soldier ducked for cover with admirable speed. Shigar lunged forward, lightsaber raised to slash at the net that inevitably headed his way. The whine of the suit’s jetpack drowned out the angry sizzling of Shigar’s blade as he cut himself free. Before the Mandalorian had gained barely a meter of altitude, Shigar Force-pushed him sideways into the building beside him, thereby crushing off the jet’s exhaust vent.
With a snarl, the Mandalorian landed heavily on both feet and fired two darts in quick succession, both aimed at Shigar’s face. Shigar deflected them and moved closer, dancing lightly on his feet. From a distance, he was at a disadvantage. Mandalorians were masters of ranged weaponry, and would do anything to avoid hand-to-hand combat except in one of their infamous gladiatorial pits. If he could get near enough to strike—with the soldier maintaining a distracting cover fire—he might just get lucky …
A rocket exploded above his head, then another. They weren’t aimed at him, but at the city’s upper levels. Rubble rained down on him, forcing him to protect his head. The Mandalorian took advantage of that slight distraction to dive under his guard and grip him tight about the throat. Shigar’s confusion was complete—but Mandalorians weren’t supposed to fight at close quarters! Then he was literally flying through the air, hurled by his assailant’s vast physical strength into a wall.
He landed on both feet, stunned but recovering quickly, and readied himself for another attack.
The Mandalorian ran three long steps to his right, leaping one-two-three onto piles of rubbish and from there onto a roof. More rockets arced upward, tearing through the ferrocrete columns of a monorail. Slender spears of metal warped and fell toward Shigar and the soldier. Only with the greatest exertion of the Force that Shigar could summon was he able to deflect them into the ground around them, where they stuck fast, quivering.
“He’s getting away!”
The soldier’s cry was followed by another explosion. A grenade hurled behind the escaping Mandalorian destroyed much of the roof in front of him and sent a huge black mushroom rising into the air. Shigar dived cautiously through it, expecting an ambush, but found the area clear on the far side. He turned in a full circle, banishing the smoke with one out-thrust push.
The Mandalorian was gone. Up, down, sideways—there was no way to tell which direction he had chosen to flee. Shigar reached out through the Force. His heart still hammered, but his breathing was steady and shallow. He felt nothing.
The soldier became visible through the smoke just steps away, moving forward in a cautious crouch. She straightened and planted her feet wide apart. The snout of her rifle targeted him, and for a moment Shigar thought she might actually fire.
“I lost him,” he said, unhappily acknowledging their failure.
“Not your fault,” she said, lowering the rifle. “We did our best.”
“Where did he come from?” he asked.
“I thought it was just the usual Black Sun bust-up,” she said, indicating the destroyed building. “Then he walked out.”
“Why did he attack you?”
“Beats me. Maybe he assumed I was a justicar.”
“You’re not one?”
“No. I don’t like their methods. And they’ll be here soon, so you should get out of here before they decide you’re responsible for all this.”
That was good advice, he acknowledged to himself. The bloodthirsty militia controlling the lower levels was a law unto itself, one that didn’t take kindly to incursions on their territory.
“Let’s see what happened here, first,” he said, moving toward the smoke-blackened doorway with lightsaber at the ready.
“Why? It’s not your problem.”
Shigar didn’t answer that. Whatever was going on here, neither of them could just walk away from it. He sensed that she would be relieved not to be heading into the building alone.
Together they explored the smoking, shattered ruins. Weapons and bodies lay next to one another in equal proportions. Clearly, the inhabitants had taken up arms against the interloper, and in turn every one of them had died. That was grisly, but not surprising. Mandalorians didn’t disapprove of illegals per se, but they did take poorly to being shot at.
On the upper floor, Shigar stopped, sensing something living among the carnage. He raised a hand, cautioning the soldier to proceed more slowly, just in case someone thought they were coming to finish the job. She glided smoothly ahead of him, heedless of danger and with her weapon at the ready. He followed soundlessly in her wake, senses tingling.
They found a single survivor huddled behind a shattered crate, a Nawtolan with blaster burns down much of one side and a dart wound to his neck, lying in a pool of his own blood. The blood was spreading fast. He looked up as Shigar bent over him to check his wounds. What Shigar couldn’t tourniquet he could cauterize, but he would have to move fast to have any chance at all.
“Dao Stryver.” The Nautolan’s voice was a guttural growl, not helped by the damage to his throat. “Came out of nowhere.”
“The Mandalorian?” said the soldier. “Is that who you’re talking about?”
The Nautolan nodded. “Dao Stryver. Wanted what we had. Wouldn’t give it to him.”
The soldier took off her helmet. She was surprisingly young, with short dark hair, a strong jaw, and eyes as green as Shigar’s lightsaber. Most startling were the distinctive black markings of Clan Moxla tattooed across her dirty cheeks.
“What did you have, exactly?” she pressed the Nautolan.
The Nautolan’s eyes rolled up into his head. “Cinzia,” he coughed, spraying dark blood across the front of her armor. “Cinzia.”
“And that is …?” she asked, leaning close as his breathing failed. “Hold on—help’s coming—just hold on!”
Shigar leaned back. There was nothing he could do, not without a proper medpac. The Nautolan had said his last.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You’ve no reason to be,” she said, staring down at her hands. “He was a member of the Black Sun, probably a murderer himself.”
“Does that make him evil? Lack of food might have done that, or medicine for his family, or a thousand other things.”
“Bad choices don’t make bad people. Right. But what else do we have to go on down here? Sometimes you have to make a stand, even if you can’t tell who the bad guys are anymore.”
A desperately fatigued look crossed her face, then, and Shigar thought that he understood her a little better. Justice was important, and so was the way people defended it, even if that meant fighting alone sometimes.
“My name is Shigar,” he said in a calming voice.
“Nice to meet you, Shigar,” she said, brightening. “And thanks. You probably saved my life back there.”
“I can’t take any credit for that. I’m sure he didn’t consider either of us worthy opponents.”
“Or maybe he worked out that we didn’t know anything about what he was looking for in the safehouse. Lema Xandret: that was the name he used on me. Ever heard of it?”
“No. Not Cinzia, either.”
She rose to her feet in one movement and cocked her rifle onto her back. “Larin, by the way.”
Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Our clans were enemies, once,” Shigar said.
“Ancient history is the least of our troubles. We’d better move out before the justicars get here.”
He looked around him, at the Nautolan, the other bodies, and the wrecked building. Dao Stryver. Lema Xandret. Cinzia.
“I’m going to talk to my Master,” he said. “She should know there’s a Mandalorian making trouble on Coruscant.”
“All right,” she said, hefting her helmet. “Lead the way.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“Never trust a Konshi. That’s what my mother always said. And if we’re going to stop a war between Dao Stryver and the Black Sun, we have to do it right. Right?”
He barely caught her smile before it disappeared behind her helmet.
“Right,” he said.
RISE OF THE EMPIRE
(33–0 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
This is the era of the Star Wars prequel films, in which Darth Sidious’s schemes lead to the devastating Clone Wars, the betrayal and destruction of the Jedi Order, and the Republic’s transformation into the Empire. It also begins the tragic story of Anakin Skywalker, the boy identified by the Jedi as the Chosen One of ancient prophecy, the one destined to bring balance to the Force. But, as seen in the movies, Anakin’s passions lead him to the dark side, and he becomes the legendary masked and helmeted villain Darth Vader.
Before his fall, however, Anakin spends many years being trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi. When the Clone Wars break out, pitting the Republic against the secessionist Trade Federation, Anakin becomes a war hero and one of the galaxy’s greatest Jedi Knights. But his love for the Naboo Queen and Senator Padmé Amidala, and his friendship with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—secretly known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—will be his undoing …
If you’re a reader looking to jump into the Rise of the Empire era, here are five great starting points:
• Labyrinth of Evil, by James Luceno: Luceno’s tale of the last days of the Clone Wars is equal parts compelling detective story and breakneck adventure, leading directly into the beginning of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
• Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover: This masterfully written novelization fleshes out the on-screen action of Episode III, delving deeply into everything from Anakin’s internal struggle and the politics of the dying Republic to the intricacies of lightsaber combat.
• Republic Commando: Hard Contact, by Karen Traviss: The first of the Republic Commando books introduces us to a band of clone soldiers, their trainers, and the Jedi generals who lead them, mixing incisive character studies with a deep understanding of the lives of soldiers at war.
• Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber: A story of horror aboard a Star Destroyer that you’ll need to read with the lights on. Supporting roles by Han Solo and his Wookiee sidekick, Chewbacca, are just icing on the cake.
• The Han Solo Adventures, by Brian Daley: Han and Chewie come to glorious life in these three swashbuckling tales of smuggling, romance, and danger in the early days before they meet Luke and Leia.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Rise of the Empire era.
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WINDU
In my dreams, I always do it right.
In my dreams, I’m on the arena balcony. Geonosis. Orange glare slices shadow from my eyes. Below on the sand: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Senator Padmé Amidala. On the rough-shaped stone within reach of my arm: Nute Gunray. Within reach of my blade: Jango Fett.
And Master Dooku.
No. Master no more. Count Dooku.
I may never get used to calling him that. Even in dreams.
Jango Fett bristles with weapons. An instinctive killer: the deadliest man in the galaxy. Jango can kill me in less than a second. I know it. Even if I had never seen Kenobi’s report from Kamino, I can feel the violence Jango radiates: in the Force, a pulsar of death.
But I do it right.
My blade doesn’t light the underside of Fett’s square jaw. I don’t waste time with words. I don’t hesitate.
I believe.
In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade sizzles the gray hairs of Dooku’s beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to aim and fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death.
And save the galaxy from civil war.
I could have done it.
I could have done it.
Because I knew. I could feel it.
In the swirl of the Force around me, I could feel the connections Dooku had forged among Jango and the Trade Federation, the Geonosians, the whole Separatist movement: connections of greed and fear, of deception and bald intimidation. I did not know what they were—I did not know how Dooku had forged them, or why—but I felt their power: the power of what I now know is a web of treason he had woven to catch the galaxy.
I could feel that without him to maintain its weave, to repair its flaws and double its thinning strands, the web would rot, would shrivel and decay until a mere breath would shred it and scatter its strings into the infinite stellar winds.
Dooku was the shatterpoint.
I knew it.
That is my gift.
Imagine a Corusca gem: a mineral whose interlocking crystalline structure makes it harder than durasteel. You can strike one with a five-kilo hammer and do no more than dent the hammer’s face. Yet the same cystalline structure that gives the Corusca strength also gives it shatterpoints: spots where a precise application of carefully measured force—no more than a gentle tap—will break it into pieces. But to find these shatterpoints, to use them to shape the Corusca gem into beauty and utility, requires years of study, an intimate understanding of crystal structure, and rigorous practice to train the hand in the perfect combination of strength and precision to produce the desired cut.
Unless you have a talent like mine.
I can see shatterpoints.
The sense is not sight, but see is the closest word Basic has for it: it is a perception, a feel of how what I look upon fits into the Force, and how the Force binds it to itself and to everything else. I was six or seven standard years old—well into my training in the Jedi Temple—before I realized that other students, full-grown Jedi Knights, even wise Masters, could sense such connections only with difficulty, and only with concentration and practice. The Force shows me strengths and weaknesses, hidden flaws and unexpected uses. It shows me vectors of stress that squeeze or stretch, torque or shear; it shows me how patterns of these vectors intersect to form the matrix of reality.
Put simply: when I look at you through the Force, I can see where you break.
I looked at Jango Fett on the sand in the Geonosian arena. A perfect combination of weapons, skills, and the will to use them: an interlocking crystal of killer. The Force hinted a shatterpoint, and I left a headless corpse on the sand. The deadliest man in the galaxy.
Now: just dead.
Situations have shatterpoints, like gems. But those of situations are fluid, ephemeral, appearing for a bare instant, vanishing again to leave no trace of their existence. They are always a function of timing.
There is no such thing as a second chance.
If—when—I next encounter Dooku, he will be the war’s shatterpoint no longer. I can’t stop this war with a single death.
But on that day in the Geonosian arena, I could have.
Some days after the battle, Master Yoda had found me in a meditation chamber at the Temple. “Your friend he was,” the ancient Master had said, even as he limped through the door. It is a peculiar gift of Yoda’s that he always seems to know what I’m thinking. “Respect you owed him. Even affection. Cut him down you could not—not for merely a feeling.”
But I could have.
I should have.
Our Order prohibits personal attachments for precisely this reason. Had I not honored him so—even loved him—the galaxy might be at peace right now. Merely a feeling, Yoda said.
I am a Jedi.
I have been trained since birth to trust my feelings.
But which feelings should I trust?
When I faced the choice to kill a former Jedi Master, or to save Kenobi and young Skywalker and the Senator … I let the Force choose for me. I followed my instincts.
I made the Jedi choice.
And so: Dooku escaped. And so: the galaxy is at war. And so: many of my friends have been slaughtered.
There is no such thing as a second chance.
Strange: Jedi I am, yet I drown in regret for having spared a life.
Many survivors of Geonosis suffer from nightmares. I have heard tale after tale from the Jedi healers who have counseled them. Nightmares are inevitable; there has not been such a slaughter of Jedi since the Sith War, four thousand years ago. None of them could have imagined how it would feel to stand in that arena, surrounded by the corpses of their friends, in the blazing orange noon and the stench and the blood-soaked sand. I may be the only veteran of Geonosis who doesn’t have nightmares of that place.
Because in my dreams, I always do it right.
My nightmare is what I find when I wake up.
Jedi have shatterpoints, too.
Mace Windu stopped in the doorway and tried to recover his calm. An arc of sweat darkened the cowl of his robe, and his tunic clung to his skin: he’d come straight from a training bout at the Temple without taking time to shower. And the brisk pace—almost a jog—he’d maintained through the labyrinth of the Galactic Senate had offered no chance for him to cool off.
Palpatine’s private office, in the Supreme Chancellor’s suite beneath the Senate’s Great Rotunda, opened before him, vast and stark. An expanse of polished ebonite floor; a few simple, soft chairs; a flat trestle desk, also ebonite. No pictures, paintings, or decorations other than two lone statues; only floor-to-ceiling holographic repeaters showing real-time images of Galactic City as seen from the pinnacle of the Senate Dome. Outside, the orbital mirrors would soon turn their faces from Coruscant’s sun, bringing twilight to the capital.
Within was only Yoda. Alone. Perched solemnly on his hoverchair, hands folded around the head of his stick. “On time you are,” the ancient Master observed, “but barely. Take a chair; composed we must be. Serious, I fear this is.”
“I wasn’t expecting a party.” Mace’s boot heels clacked on the polished floor. He pulled one of the soft, plain chairs closer to Yoda and sat beside him, facing the desk. Tension made his jaw ache. “The courier said this is about the operation on Haruun Kal.”
The fact that of all the members of the Jedi Council and the Republic High Command, only the two senior members of the Council had been summoned by the Chancellor, implied that the news was not good.
These two senior members could hardly have appeared more different. Yoda was barely two-thirds of a meter tall, with skin green as Chadian wander-kelp and great bulging eyes that could sometimes seem almost to take on a light of their own; Mace was tall for a human, less than a hand’s breadth short of two meters, with shoulders broad and powerful, heavy arms, dark eyes, and a grim set to his jaw. Where Yoda had let his sparse remnants of hair straggle at random, Mace’s skull was smooth-shaven, the color of polished lammas.
But their greatest difference perhaps lay in the feel of the two Jedi Masters. Yoda emanated a sense of mellow wisdom, combined with the impish sense of humor characteristic of the true sage; but his great age and vast experience sometimes made him seem a bit removed, even detached. Nearing nine hundred years of age led him to naturally take the long view. Mace, in contrast, had been elevated to the Jedi Council before his thirtieth birthday. His demeanor was exactly opposite. Lean. Driven. Intense. He radiated incisive intellect and unconquerable will.
As of the Battle of Geonosis, which had opened the Clone Wars, Mace had been on the Council for more than twenty standard years. It had been ten since anyone had last seen him smile.
He sometimes wondered privately if he would ever smile again.
“But it is not the planet Haruun Kal that brings you in a sweat to this office,” Yoda said now. His tone was light and understanding, but his gaze was sharp. “Concerned for Depa, you are.”
Mace lowered his head. “I know: the Force will bring what it will. But Republic Intelligence has reported that the Separatists have pulled back; their base outside Pelek Baw is abandoned—”
“Yet return she has not.”
Mace knotted his fingers together. A breath brought his voice back to its customary deep, flat dispassion. “Haruun Kal is still nominally a Separatist planet. And she’s a wanted woman. It won’t be easy for her to get offworld. Or even to signal for extraction—the local militia use all kinds of signal jamming, and whatever they don’t jam they triangulate; whole partisan bands have been wiped out by one incautious transmission—”
“Your friend she is.” Yoda used his stick to poke Mace on the arm. “Care for her, you do.”
Mace didn’t meet his eyes. His feelings for Depa Billaba ran deep.
She had been onworld for four standard months. She couldn’t communicate regularly; Mace had tracked her activities by sporadic Republic Intelligence reports of sabotage at the Separatist starfighter base, and the fruitless expeditions of the Balawai militias trying—and failing—to wipe out Depa’s guerrillas, or even contain them. More than a month ago, Republic Intelligence had sent word that the Separatists had pulled back to the Gevarno Cluster, because they could no longer maintain and defend their base. Her success could not have been more brilliant.
But he feared to learn at what cost.
“But it can’t simply be that she’s missing, or …,” he murmured. A dark flush spread over his bare dome of skull when he realized he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. He felt Yoda’s eyes on him still, and gave half an apologetic shrug. “I was only thinking: if she’d been captured or—or killed—there would be no need for such secrecy …”
The creases on Yoda’s face deepened around his mouth, and he made that tchk sound of mild disapproval that any Jedi would instantly recognize. “Frivolous, speculation is, when patience will reveal all.”
Mace nodded silently. One did not argue with Master Yoda; in the Jedi Temple, this was learned in infancy. No Jedi ever forgot it. “It’s … maddening, Master. If only … I mean, ten years ago, we could have simply reached out—”
“Cling to the past, a Jedi cannot,” Yoda interrupted sternly. His green stare reminded Mace not to speak of the shadow that had darkened Jedi perception of the Force. This was not discussed outside the Temple. Not even here. “Member of the Jedi Council, she is. Powerful Jedi. Brilliant warrior—”
“She’d better be.” Mace tried to smile. “I trained her.”
“But worry you do. Too much. Not only for Depa, but for all the Jedi. Ever since Geonosis.”
The smile wasn’t working. He stopped trying. “I don’t want to talk about Geonosis.”
“Known this for months, I have.” Yoda poked him again, and Mace looked up. The ancient Master leaned toward him, ears curled forward, and his huge green eyes glimmered softly. “But when, finally, to talk you want … listen, I will.”
Mace accepted this with a silent inclination of his head. He’d never doubted it. But still, he preferred to discuss something else.
Anything else.
“Look at this place,” he murmured, nodding at the expanse of the Supreme Chancellor’s office. “Even after ten years, the difference between Palpatine and Valorum … How this office was, in those days—”
Yoda lifted his head in that reverse nod of his. “Remember Finis Valorum well, I do. Last of a great line, he was.” Some vast distance drifted through his gaze: he might have been looking back along his nine hundred years as a Jedi.
It was unsettling to contemplate that the Republic, seemingly eternal in its millennium-long reign, was not much older than Yoda himself. Sometimes, in the tales Yoda told of his long-vanished younger days, a Jedi might have heard the youth of the Republic itself: brash, confident, bursting with vitality as it expanded across the galaxy, bringing peace and justice to cluster after cluster, system after system, world after world.
For Mace, it was even more unsettling to contemplate the contrast Yoda was seeing.
“Connected with the past, Valorum was. Rooted deep in tradition’s soil.” In the wave of his hand, Yoda seemed to summon Finis Valorum’s dazzling array of antique furniture gleaming with exotic oils, his artworks and sculptures and treasures from a thousand worlds. Legacies of thirty generations of House Valorum had once filled this office. “Perhaps too deep: a man of history, was Valorum. Palpatine …” Yoda’s eyes drifted closed. “A man of today, Palpatine is.”
“You say that as though it pains you.”
“Perhaps it does. Or perhaps: my pain is only of this day, not its man.”
“I prefer the office like this.” Mace half nodded around the sweep of open floor. Austere. Unpretentious and uncompromising. To Mace, it was a window into Palpatine’s character: the Supreme Chancellor lived entirely for the Republic. Simple in dress. Direct in speech. Unconcerned with ornamentation or physical comfort. “A shame he can’t touch the Force. He might have made a fine Jedi.”
“But then, another Supreme Chancellor would we need.” Yoda smiled gently. “Better this way, perhaps it is.”
Mace acknowledged the point with a slight bow.
“Admire him, you do.”
Mace frowned. He’d never thought about it. His adult life had been spent at the orders of the Supreme Chancellor … but he served the office, not the man. What did he think of the Supreme Chancellor as a person? What difference could that make?
“I suppose I do.” Mace vividly recalled what the Force had shown him while he watched Palpatine sworn in as Supreme Chancellor, ten years before: Palpatine was himself a shatterpoint on which the future of the Republic—perhaps even the whole galaxy—depended. “The only other person I can imagine leading the Republic through this dark hour is … well—” He opened a hand. “—you, Master Yoda.”
Yoda rocked back on his hoverchair and made the rustling snuffle that served him for a laugh. “No politician am I, foolish one.”
He still occasionally spoke as though Mace were a student. Mace didn’t mind. It made him feel young. Everything else these days made him feel old.
Yoda’s laughter faded. “And no fit leader for this Republic would I be.” He lowered his voice even further, to barely above a whisper. “Clouded by darkness are my eyes; the Force shows me only suffering, and destruction, and the rise of a long, long night. Better off without the Force, leaders perhaps are; able to see well enough, young Palpatine seems.”
“Young” Palpatine—who had at least ten years on Mace, and looked twice that—chose that moment to enter the room, accompanied by another man. Yoda stepped down from his hoverchair. Mace rose in respect. The Jedi Masters bowed, greeting the Supreme Chancellor with their customary formality. He waved the courtesies aside. Palpatine looked tired: flesh seemed to be dissolving beneath his sagging skin, deepening his already hollowed cheeks.
The man with Palpatine was hardly larger than a boy, though clearly well past forty; lank, thinning brown hair draped a face so thoroughly undistinguished that Mace could forget it the instant he glanced away. His eyes were red-rimmed, he held a cloth handkerchief to his nose, and he looked so much like some minor bureaucratic functionary—a clerk in a dead-end government post, with job security and absolutely nothing else—that Mace automatically assumed he was a spy.
“We have news of Depa Billaba.”
Despite his earlier reasoning, the simple sadness in the Chancellor’s voice sent Mace’s stomach plummeting.
“This man has just come from Haruun Kal. I’m afraid—well, perhaps you should simply examine the evidence for yourself.”
“What is it?” Mace’s mouth went dry as ash. “Has she been captured?” The treatment a captured Jedi could expect from Dooku’s Separatists had been demonstrated on Geonosis.
“No, Master Windu,” Palpatine said. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid it’s quite a bit worse.”
The agent opened a large travelcase and produced an old-fashioned holoprojector. He spent a moment fiddling with controls, and then an image bloomed above the mirror-polished ebonite that served as Palpatine’s desk.
Yoda’s ears flattened, and his eyes narrowed to slits.
Palpatine looked away. “I have seen too much of this already,” he said.
Mace’s hands became fists. He couldn’t seem to get his breath.
The shimmering corpses were each the size of his finger. He counted nineteen. They looked human, or close to it. There was a scatter of prefabricated huts, blasted and burned and broken. The ruins of what must have once been a stockade wall made a ring around the scene. The jungle that surrounded them all stood four decimeters high, and covered a meter and a half of Palpatine’s desk.
After a moment, the agent sniffled apologetically. “This is—er, seems to be—the work of Loyalist partisans, under the command of Master Billaba.”
Yoda stared.
Mace stared.
There—those wounds … Mace needed a better view. When he reached into the jungle, his hand crawled with the bright ripples of the holoprojector’s scanning-matrix lasers. “These.”
He passed his hand through a group of three bodies that gaped with ragged wounds. “Enhance these.”
The Republic Intelligence agent answered without taking his handkerchief away from his reddened eyes. “Uh, I’m uh—Master Windu, this recording is, er, is quite unsophisticated—almost, uh, primitive—” His voice vanished into a sneeze that jerked him forward as though he’d been slapped on the back of the head. “Sorry—sorry, I can’t—my system won’t tolerate histamine suppressors. Every time I come to Coruscant—”
Mace’s hand didn’t move. He didn’t look up. He waited while the agent’s whine trickled to silence. Nineteen corpses. And this man complained about his allergies.
“Enhance these,” Mace repeated.
“I, ah—yes. Sir.” The agent manipulated the holoprojector’s controls with hands that didn’t quite tremble. Not quite. The jungle flicked out of existence. It reappeared an instant later, spread across ten meters of the office’s floor. The tangled upper branches of the holographic trees had become glimmering scan patterns on the ceiling; the corpses were now almost half life-sized.
The agent ducked his head, scrubbing furiously at his nose with the handkerchief. “Sorry, Master Windu. Sorry. But the system—it’s—”
“Primitive. Yes.” Mace waded through the light-cast images until he could squat beside the bodies. He rested his elbows on his knees, folding his hands together before his face.
Yoda walked closer, then crouched as he leaned in for a better view. After a moment, Mace looked up into his sad green eyes. “See?”
“Yes … yes,” Yoda croaked. “But from this, no conclusion can be drawn.”
“That’s my point.”
“For those of us who are not Jedi—” Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s voice had the warm strength of a career politician’s. He rounded his desk, on his face the slightly puzzled smile of a good man who faced an ugly situation with hope that everything might still turn out all right. “—perhaps you’ll explain?”
“Yes, sir. The other bodies don’t tell us much, between decomposition and scavenger damage. But some of the mutilation on the soft tissue here—” A curve of Mace’s hand traced gaping slashes across a holographic female torso. “—isn’t from claws or teeth. And they didn’t come from a powered weapon. See the scoring on her ribs? A lightsaber—even a vibroblade—would have slashed right through the bone. This was done with a dead blade, sir.”
Revulsion tightened the Supreme Chancellor’s face. “A—dead blade? You mean just—like a piece of metal? Just a sharp piece of metal?”
“A very sharp piece of metal, sir.” Mace cocked his head a centimeter to the right. “Or ceramic. Transparisteel. Even carbonite.”
Palpatine took a deep breath as though suppressing a shudder. “It sounds … dreadfully crude. And painful.”
“Sometimes it is, sir. Not always.” He didn’t bother to explain how he knew. “But these slashes are parallel, and all of nearly the same length; it’s likely she was dead before the cuts were made. Or at least unconscious.”
“Or—” The agent sniffled, and coughed apologetically. “—just, er, y’know, tied up.”
Mace stared at him. Yoda closed his eyes. Palpatine lowered his head as though in pain.
“There is, uh, a history of, uh, I guess you’d say, recreational torture in the Haruun Kal conflict. On both sides.” The agent flushed as though he was ashamed to know such things. “Sometimes, people—people hate so much, that just killing the enemy isn’t enough …”
A fist clenched in Mace’s chest: that this soft little man—this civilian—could accuse Depa Billaba of such an atrocity, even by implication, grabbed his heart with sick fury. A long cold stare showed him every place on this soft man’s soft body where one sharp blow would kill; the agent blanched as if he could count them all in Mace’s eyes.
But Mace had been a Jedi far too long for anger to gain an easy grip. A breath or two opened that fist around his heart, and he stood. “I have seen nothing to indicate Depa was involved.”
“Master Windu—” Palpatine began.
“What was the military value of this outpost?”
“Military value?” The agent looked startled. “Why, none, I suppose. These were Balawai jungle prospectors. Jups, they call ’em. Some jups operate as a kind of irregular militia, but irregulars are nearly always men. There were six women here. And Balawai militia units never, ah, never bring their, ah, children …”
“Children,” Mace echoed.
The agent nodded reluctantly. “Three. Mm, bioscans indicate one girl about twelve, the other two possibly fraternal twins. Boy and a girl. About nine. Had to use bioscans …” His sickly eyes asked Mace not to make him finish.
Because a few days in the jungle hadn’t left enough of them to be identified any other way.
Mace said, “I understand.”
“These weren’t militia, Master Windu. Just Balawai jungle prospectors in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Jungle prospectors?” Palpatine appeared politely interested. “And what are Balawai?”
“Offworlders, sir,” Mace said. “The jungles of Haruun Kal are the galaxy’s sole source of thyssel bark, as well as portaak leaf, jinsol, tyruun, and lammas. Among others.”
“Spices and exotic woods? And these are valuable enough to draw offworld emigrants? Into a war zone?”
“Have you priced thyssel bark lately?”
“I—” Palpatine smiled regretfully. “I don’t care for it, actually. I suppose my tastes are pedestrian; you can take a boy out of the Mid Rim, but …”
Mace shook his head. “Not relevant, sir. My point: these were civilians. Depa wouldn’t be involved in something like this. She couldn’t.”
“Hasty, your statement is,” Yoda said gravely. “Seen all evidence, I fear we have not.”
Mace looked at the agent. The agent flushed again.
“Well, er, yes—Master Yoda is correct. This, uh, recording—” He twitched his head around at the ghostly corpses that filled the office. “—was made with the prospectors’ own equipment; it’s adapted to Haruun Kal work, where more sophisticated electronics—”
“I don’t need a lesson on Haruun Kal.” Mace’s voice went sharp. “I need your evidence.”
“Yes, yes of course, Master Windu …” The agent fished in his travelcase for a second or two, then came up with an old-fashioned data wafer of crystal. He handed it over. “It’s, uh, audio only, but—we’ve done voiceprint analysis. It’s not exact—and there’s some ambient noise, other voices, jungle sounds, that kind of thing—but we put match probability in the ninety percent range.”
Mace weighed the crystal wafer in his hand. He stared down at it. There. Right there: the flick of a fingernail could crack it in two. I should do it, he thought. Crush this thing. Snap it in half right now. Destroy it unheard.
Because he knew. He could feel it. In the Force, stress lines spidered out from the wafer like frost scaling supercooled transparisteel. He could not read the pattern, but he could feel its power.
This would be ugly.
“Where did you find it?”
“It was—uh, at the scene. Of the massacre. It was … well, at the scene.”
“Where did you find it?”
The agent flinched.
Again, Mace took a breath. Then another. With the third, the fist in his chest relaxed. “I am sorry.”
Sometimes he forgot how intimidating some men found his height and voice. Not to mention his reputation. He did not wish to be feared.
At least, not by those loyal to the Republic.
“Please,” he said. “It might be significant.”
The agent mumbled something.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, it was in her mouth.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the holographic corpse at Mace’s feet. “Someone had … fixed her jaw shut, so scavengers wouldn’t get at it when they … well, y’know, scavengers prefer the, the, er, the tongue …”
Nausea bloomed below Mace’s ribs. His fingertips tingled. He stared down at the woman’s image. Those marks on her face—he had thought they were just marks. Or some kind of fungus, or a colony of mold. Now his eyes made sense of them, and he wished they hadn’t: dull gold-colored lumps under her chin.
Brassvine thorns.
Someone had used them to nail her jaw shut.
He had to turn away. He realized that he had to sit down, too.
The agent continued, “Our station boss got a tip and sent me to check it out. I hired a steamcrawler from some busted-out jups, rented a handful of townies who can handle heavy weapons, and crawled up there. What we found … well, you can see it. That data wafer—when I found it …”
Mace stared at the man as though he’d never seen him before. And he hadn’t: only now, finally, was he truly seeing him. An undistinguished little man: soft face and uncertain voice, shaky hands and allergies: an undistinguished little man who must have resources of toughness that Mace could barely imagine. To have walked into a scene that Mace could barely stomach even in a bloodless, translucent laser image; to have had to smell them—touch them—to pry open a dead woman’s mouth …
And then to bring the recordings here, so that he could live it all again—
Mace could have done it. He thought so. Probably. He’d been some places, and seen some things.
Not like this.
The agent said, “Our sources are pretty sure the tip came from the ULF itself.”
Palpatine glanced a question. Mace spoke without taking his eyes off the agent. “The Upland Liberation Front, sir. That’s Depa’s partisan group; ‘uplanders’ is a rough translation of Korunnai—the name the mountain tribes give themselves.”
“Korunnai?” Palpatine frowned absently. “Aren’t those your people, Master Windu?”
“My … kin.” He made himself unclench his jaw. “Yes, Chancellor. You have a good memory.”
“A politician’s trick.” Palpatine gave a gently self-deprecating smile and waved a dismissive hand. “Please go on.”
The agent shrugged as though there was little more to tell. “There have been a lot of … disturbing reports. Execution of prisoners. Ambushes of civilians. On both sides. Usually they can’t be verified. The jungle … swallows everything. So when we got this tip—”
“You found this because somebody wanted you to find it,” Mace finished for him. “And now you think—”
Mace turned the data wafer over and over through his fingers, watching it catch splinters of light. “You think those people might have been killed just to deliver this message.”
“What a hideous idea!” Palpatine lowered himself slowly onto the edge of his desk. He appealed to the agent. “This can’t be true, can it?”
The agent only hung his head.
Yoda’s ears curled backward, and his eyes narrowed. “Some messages … most important, is how they are framed. Secondary, their content is.”
Palpatine shook his head in disbelief. “These ULF partisans—we ally ourselves with them? The Jedi ally with them? What sort of monsters are they?”
“I don’t know.” Mace handed the wafer back to the agent. “Let’s find out.”
He slotted it into a port on the side of the holoprojector and touched a control.
The holoprojector’s phased-wave speakers brought the jungle around them to life with noise: the rush of windrattled leaves, skrills and clatters of insect calls, dim dopplered shrieks of passing birds, the howls and coughs of distant predators. Through the eddies and boils of sound drifted a whisper sinuous as a riversnake: a human or near-human whisper, a voice murmuring in Basic, sometimes comprehensible for a word here or phrase there, sometimes twisting below the distorting ripples of the aural surface. Mace caught the words Jedi, and night—or knife—and something about look between the stars …
He frowned at the agent. “You can’t clean this up?”
“This is cleaned up.” The agent produced a datapad from his travelcase, keyed it alight, and passed it to Mace. “We made a transcript. It’s provisional. Best we can do.”
The transcript was fragmentary, but enough to draw chills up Mace’s arms: Jedi Temple … taught (or possibly taut) … dark … an enemy. But … Jedi … under cover of night.
One whisper was entirely clear. He read the words on the datapad’s screen as the whisper seemed to come from just behind his shoulder.
I use the night, and the night uses me.
He forgot to breathe. This was bad.
It got worse.
The whisper strengthened to a voice. A woman’s voice.
Depa’s voice.
On the datapad in his hand, and murmuring in the air behind his shoulder—
I have become the darkness in the jungle.
The recording went on. And on.
Her murmur drained him: of emotion, of strength, even of thought; the longer she rambled, the emptier he got. Yet her final words still triggered a dull shock inside his chest.
She was talking to him …
I know you will come for me, Mace. You should never have sent me here. And I should never have come. But what’s done can never be undone. I know you think I’ve gone mad. I haven’t. What’s happened to me is worse.
I’ve gone sane.
That’s why you’ll come, Mace. That’s why you’ll have to.
Because nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi who’s finally sane.
Her voice trailed off into the jungle-mutter.
No one moved or spoke. Mace sat with interlocked fingers supporting his chin. Yoda leaned on his cane, eyes shut, mouth pinched with inner pain. Palpatine stared solemnly through the holographic jungle, as though he saw something real beyond its boundary.
“That’s—uh, that’s all there is.” The agent extended a hesitant hand to the holoprojector and flicked a control. The jungle vanished like a bad dream.
They all stirred, rousing themselves, instinctively adjusting their clothing. Palpatine’s office now looked unreal: as though the clean carpeted floor and crisp lines of furniture, the pure filtered air, and the view of Coruscant that filled the large windows were the holographic projection, and they all still sat in the jungle.
As though only the jungle were real.
Mace spoke first.
“She’s right.” He lifted his head from his hands. “I have to go after her. Alone.”
Palpatine’s eyebrows twitched. “That seems … unwise.”
“Concur with Chancellor Palpatine, I do,” Yoda said slowly. “Great risks there would be. Too valuable you are. Send others, we should.”
“There is no one else who can do this.”
“Surely, Master Windu”—Palpatine’s smile was respectfully disbelieving—“a Republic Intelligence covert ops team, or even a team of Jedi—”
“No.” Mace rose, and straightened his shoulders. “It has to be me.”
“Please, we all understand your concern for your former student, Master Windu, but surely—”
“Reasons he must have, Supreme Chancellor,” Yoda said. “Listen to them, we should.”
Even Palpatine found that one did not argue with Master Yoda.
Mace struggled to put his certainty into words. This difficulty was a function of his particular gift of perception. Some things were so obvious to him that they were hard to describe: like explaining how he knew it was raining while he stood in a thunderstorm.
“If Depa has … gone mad—or worse, fallen to the dark side,” he began, “it’s vital that the Jedi know why. That we discover what did it to her. Until we know this, no more Jedi should be exposed to it than is absolutely necessary. Also, this all might be entirely false: a deliberate attempt to incriminate her. That ambient noise on the recording …” He glanced at the agent. “If her voice was faked—say, synthesized by computer—that noise could be there precisely to blur the evidence of trickery, couldn’t it?”
The agent nodded. “But why would someone want to frame her?”
Mace waved this off. “Regardless, she must be brought in. And soon—before rumor of such massacres reaches the wider galaxy. Even if she had nothing to do with them, having a Jedi’s name associated with these crimes is a threat to the public trust in the Jedi. She must answer any charges before they are ever publicly made.”
“Granted, she must be brought in,” Palpatine allowed. “But the question remains: why you?”
“Because she might not want to come.”
Palpatine looked thoughtful.
Yoda’s head came up, and his eyes opened, gleaming at the Supreme Chancellor. “If rogue she has gone … to find her, difficult it will be. To apprehend her …” His voice dropped, as though the words caused him pain. “Dangerous, that will be.”
“Depa was my Padawan.” Mace moved away from the desk and stared out the window at the shimmering twilight that slowly darkened the capital’s cityscape. “The bond of Master and Padawan is … intense. No one knows her better—and I have more experience in those jungles than any other living Jedi. I’m the only one who can find her if she doesn’t want to be found. And if she must be—”
He swallowed, and stared at the moondisk of light scattered from one of the orbital mirrors. “If she must be … stopped,” he said at length, “I may be the only one who can do that, too.”
Palpatine’s eyebrows twitched polite incomprehension.
Mace took a deep breath, finding himself once more looking at his hands, through his hands, seeing only an image in his mind, sharp as a dream: lightsaber against lightsaber in the Temple’s training halls, the green flash of Depa’s blade seeming to come from everywhere at once.
He could not unmake what he had made.
There were no second chances.
Her voice echoed inside him: Nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi who’s finally sane, but he said only—
“She is a master of Vaapad.”
In the silence that followed, he studied the folds and wrinkles of his interlaced fingers, focusing his attention into his visual field to hold at bay dark dream-ghosts of Depa’s blade flashing toward Jedi necks.
“Vaapad?” Palpatine repeated, eventually. Perhaps he’d grown tired of waiting for someone to explain. “Isn’t that some kind of animal?”
“A predator of Sarapin,” Yoda supplied gravely. “Also the nickname it is, given by students, for the seventh form of lightsaber combat.”
“Hmp. I’ve always heard there are only six.”
“Six there were, for generations of Jedi. The seventh … is not well known. A powerful form it is. Deadliest of all … But dangerous it is—to its master, as well as its opponent. Few have studied. One student alone to mastery has risen.”
“But if she’s the only master—and this style is so deadly—what makes you think—”
“She’s not the only master, sir.” He lifted his head to meet Palpatine’s frown. “She is my only student to become a master.”
“Your only student …” Palpatine echoed.
“I didn’t study Vaapad.” Mace let his hands fall to his sides. “I created it.”
Palpatine’s brows drew together thoughtfully. “Yes, I seem to recall now: a reference in your report on the treason of Master Sora Bulq. Didn’t you train him as well? Didn’t he also claim to be a master of this Vaapad of yours?”
“Sora Bulq was not my student.”
“Your … associate, then?”
“And he did not master Vaapad,” Mace said grimly. “Vaapad mastered him.”
“Ah—ah, I see …”
“With respect, sir, I don’t think you do.”
“I see enough to worry me, just a bit.” The warmth of Palpatine’s smile robbed insult from his words. “The relationship of Master and Padawan is intense, you said; and I well believe it. When you faced Dooku on Geonosis …”
“I prefer,” Mace said softly, “not to talk about Geonosis, Chancellor.”
“Depa Billaba was your Padawan. And she is still perhaps your closest friend, is she not? If she must be slain, are you so certain you can strike her down?”
Mace looked at the floor, at Yoda, at the agent, and in the end he had to meet Palpatine’s eyes once more. It was not merely Palpatine of Naboo who had asked; this question had come from the Supreme Chancellor. His office demanded an answer.
“May the Force grant, sir,” Mace said slowly, “that I will not have to find out.”
REBELLION
(0–5 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
This is the period of the classic Star Wars movie trilogy—A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi—in which a ragtag band of Rebels battles the Empire, and Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force and must avoid his father’s fate.
During this time, the Empire controls nearly the entire settled galaxy. Out in the Rim worlds, Imperial stormtroopers suppress uprisings with brutal efficiency, many alien species have been enslaved, and entire star systems are brutally exploited by the Empire’s war machine. In the central systems, however, most citizens support the Empire, weighing misgivings about its harsh methods against the memories of the horror and chaos of the Clone Wars. Few dare to openly oppose Emperor Palpatine’s rule.
But the Rebel Alliance is growing. Rebel cells strike in secret from hidden bases scattered among the stars, encouraging some of the braver Senators to speak out against the Empire. When the Rebels learn that the Empire is building the Death Star, a space station with enough firepower to destroy entire planets, Princess Leia Organa, who represents her homeworld, Alderaan, in the Senate and is secretly a high-ranking member of the Rebel Alliance, receives the plans for the battle station and flees in search of the exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Thus begin the events that lead her to meet the smuggler and soon-to-be hero Han Solo, to discover her long-lost brother, Luke Skywalker, and to help the Rebellion take down the Emperor and restore democracy to the galaxy: the events of the three films A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
If you’re a reader looking for places to jump in and explore the Rebellion-era novels, here are five great places to start:
• Death Star, by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry: The story of the construction of the massive battle station, touching on the lives of the builders, planners, soldiers, and support staff who populate the monstrous vessel, as well as the masterminds behind the design and those who intend to make use of it: the Emperor and Darth Vader.
• The Mandalorian Armor, by K. W. Jeter: The famous bounty hunter Boba Fett stars in a twisty tale of betrayal within the galactic underworld, highlighted by a riveting confrontation between bounty hunters and a band of Hutts.
• Shadows of the Empire, by Steve Perry: A tale of the shadowy parts of the Empire and an underworld criminal mastermind who is out to kill Luke Skywalker, while our other heroes try to figure out how to rescue Han Solo, who has been frozen in carbonite for delivery to Jabba the Hutt.
• Tales of the Bounty Hunters, edited by Kevin J. Anderson: The bounty hunters summoned by Darth Vader to capture the Millennium Falcon tell their stories in this anthology of short tales, culminating with Daniel Keys Moran’s elegiac “The Last One Standing.”
• Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, by Matthew Stover: A tale set shortly after the events of Return of the Jedi, in which Luke must defeat the flamboyant dark sider known as Lord Shadowspawn while the pilots of Rogue Squadron duel his servants amid tumbling asteroids.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Rebellion era.
Chapter One
THE IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYER REPRISAL SLIPPED silently through the blackness of space, preparing itself for action against the Rebel forces threatening to tear the galaxy apart.
Standing on the command walkway, his hands clasped behind him, Captain Kendal Ozzel gazed out at the planet Teardrop directly ahead, a mixture of anticipation and dark brooding swirling through him. As far as he was concerned the entire planet was a snake pit, crawling with smugglers, third-rate pirate gangs, and other dregs of society. If he’d been in command of the Death Star instead of that idiot Tarkin, he mused, he would have picked someplace like Teardrop instead of Alderaan for the weapon’s first serious field test.
But he hadn’t been in charge; and now both Tarkin and the Death Star were gone, blown to shrapnel off Yavin 4. In a single, awful moment the Rebel Alliance had morphed from a minor nuisance to a bitter enemy.
And Imperial Center had responded. Less than three days ago the word had come down to show no mercy to either the Rebels or their sympathizers.
Not that Ozzel would have shown any mercy at any rate. Eliminating Rebels, and Rebel sympathizers, had become the best and fastest way to success in the Imperial fleet. Perhaps all the way to an admiral’s rank bars. “Status?” he called behind him.
“Forty-seven standard minutes to orbit, sir,” the navigation officer called from the crew pits.
Ozzel nodded. “Keep a sharp watch,” he ordered. “No one gets off that planet.”
He glowered at the faintly lit disk ahead of them. “No one,” he added softly.
“Luke?” Han Solo called from the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit. “Come on, kid—move it. We’re on a tight schedule here.”
“They’re in!” Luke Skywalker’s voice came back. “Ramp’s sealed.”
Han already knew that from his control board readouts, of course. If the kid stuck around, he’d have to learn not to clutter the ship’s atmosphere with unnecessary chatter. “Okay, Chewie, hit it,” he said.
Beside him Chewbacca gave a rolling trill of acknowledgment, and the Falcon lifted smoothly off the hard-packed Teardrop ground.
Apparently not smoothly enough. From behind, Han heard a couple of muffled and rather indignant exclamations. “Hey!” someone shouted.
Han rolled his eyes as he fed power to the sublight engines. “This is absolutely the last time we take on passengers,” he told his partner firmly.
Chewbacca’s reply was squarely to the point and a shade on the disrespectful side.
“No, I mean it,” Han insisted. “From now on, if they don’t pay, they don’t fly.”
From behind him came footsteps, and he glanced back as Luke dropped into the seat behind Chewbacca. “They’re all settled,” he announced.
“Great,” Han said sarcastically. “Once we make hyperspace, I’ll take their drink orders.”
“Oh, come on,” Luke chided him. “Anyway, you think this bunch is stiff, you should have seen the ones who got out on the earlier transports. These are just the techs who were in charge of packing up the last few crates of equipment.”
Han grimaced. Crates which were currently filling the Falcon’s holds, leaving no room for paying cargo even if he managed to find some on the way to the rendezvous. This was going to be a complete, 100 percent charity run, like everything else he and Chewbacca had done for Luke and his new friends in the Rebel Alliance. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen plenty of useless techs before,” he muttered.
He was waiting for Luke to come to the techs’ defense when a splatter of laserfire ricocheted off the rear deflector. “What the—” he snarled, throwing the Falcon into a tight drop loop.
The instinctive maneuver probably saved their skins. Another burst shot through the space they’d just left, this one coming from a different direction. Han twisted the ship back around, hoping fleetingly that their passengers were still strapped in, then took a second to check the aft display.
One glance at the half dozen mismatched ships rising behind them was all he needed. “Pirates,” he snapped to the others, throwing power to the engines and angling the ship upward. Facing pirates deep inside a planet’s gravity well, with no cover and no chance of quick escape to hyperspace, was about the worst situation a pilot could encounter.
And even the Falcon couldn’t outmaneuver this many ships forever. “Chewie, get us up and out,” he said, throwing off his straps. “Come on, Luke.”
The kid was already on it, heading down the cockpit tunnel at a dead run. Han followed, rounding the corner in time to see Luke duck past the passengers crammed into the wraparound seat and head up the ladder to the upper quad laser station. “Captain?” one of the passengers called.
“Save it,” Han shot back, grabbing the ladder and sliding down toward the lower quads. He caught himself as the gravity around him did its ninety-degree shift, then dropped into the seat.
It looked even worse from down here than it had from the cockpit. A second wave of pirate ships had joined the first, this group pumping laserfire all around the edges of the first group, forming a deadly cylinder of death around the Falcon’s flight vector. They were trying to force their prey to stay on that line so that the first group could chase them down.
Well, they were in for a surprise. Keying the quads with one hand, he snagged his headset with the other and jammed it on. “Luke?”
“I’m here. Any particular strategy, or do we just start with the biggest and see how fast we can blow them apart?”
Han frowned as he got a grip on the control yoke, an odd idea whispering at him. The way that second wave was positioned … “You go for that big lead ship,” he said. “I’m going to try something cute.”
Luke’s reply was a blast of laserfire squarely into the lead pirate’s bow.
The other ship swerved violently in reaction—clearly, they hadn’t expected this kind of firepower from a simple light freighter. The pilot recovered quickly, though, settling the ship back into its position in the battle array. The entire lead wave moved closer together, closing ranks to get maximum protection from their overlapping shields. Han watched closely, waiting for the obvious next move, and heard the twitter from his display board as the lead ships all shifted shield power to doublefront.
Which meant they’d just unavoidably lowered the strength of their aft shields. Perfect. “Chewie—dip and waffle,” he ordered into his comm. The Falcon dropped suddenly in response, and for a second the rear wave of ships was visible past the edges of the first wave’s shields. Han was ready, firing a double burst past the lead wave into the flank of the biggest second-wave ship, sending it into a violent swerve as its primary maneuvering system was blown to bits.
And as it did, the laserfire that had been forming that part of the Falcon’s entrapment ring sprayed with shattering force across the sterns of the lead-wave ships.
It was everything Han could have hoped for. Two of the smaller ships veered instantly and violently out of formation as their engine sections blew up. The first ricocheted a glancing blow off one of the other pirates on its way to oblivion, while the second slammed full-tilt into another. They fell away together, with Luke taking advantage of the distraction to blow one of the other lead ships into fiery dust.
Then, to Han’s shock and disbelief, the Falcon dropped and turned into a curving arc back toward the planet’s surface. “Chewie?” he snarled. “What in—”
The Wookiee growled a warning. Frowning, Han craned his neck to look in the direction Chewie was facing as the familiar shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer swung into view around the dark edge of the planetary disk.
“Han!” Luke gasped.
“I see it, I see it,” Han said, his mind racing. Clearly, the Rebel cell on Teardrop had gotten out just in time.
Except that the last half a dozen members of that cell were currently sitting a couple of meters directly above him in the Falcon’s lounge. If the Imperials caught them here …
Then his brain caught up to him, and he understood what Chewbacca had been doing with that last maneuver. “Luke, shut down,” he ordered, slapping the switches on his own quads. The last thing he wanted was for the Imperials to do a power scan and see that the Falcon had this kind of weaponry. “Chewie, give me comm.”
There was a click—“Emergency!” he called, putting desperation into his voice. “Incoming freighter Argos requesting assistance from Teardrop planetary defenses.”
There was no answer from the ground, of course. Given the shady character of most of the planet’s residents and visitors, Han wasn’t even sure they had a real defense force down there. But then, he didn’t especially care if anyone on Teardrop heard him or not. All he cared about was—
“Freighter Argos, state your intention and emergency,” a clipped military voice responded.
“Medical mercy team from Briston, responding to the recent groundquake on Por’ste Island,” Han called back. Behind the Falcon, he saw, the remaining pirate ships were re-forming to continue the attack. Apparently they hadn’t noticed Teardrop’s newest visitor. “We’re under attack—I think they’re pirates.”
“Argos, acknowledged,” the voice said. “Hold your present course.”
“But if I do—”
He never got to finish his token protest. Behind him a two-by-two group of brilliant green turbolaser bolts sliced across the pirates’ formation, blasting four of the ships into rubble.
This time they got the message. The survivors broke formation and headed off in all directions, some back toward the ground, others trying to escape into hyperspace.
Neither option worked. Calmly, systematically, precisely, the Star Destroyer continued to fire, blasting the pirates one by one until the Falcon was flying alone.
“Now what?” Luke murmured in Han’s earphone.
Han ignored him. “Many thanks, Captain,” he called. “Glad to see the Empire is taking this pirate problem seriously.”
“You’re welcome, Argos,” a new voice said. “Now turn around and go home.”
“What?” Han demanded, trying to sound both outraged and stunned. “But, Captain—”
“That’s an order, Argos,” the other cut him off tartly. “As of right now Teardrop is under Imperial interdiction. Go back to Briston and wait until the block has been lifted.”
Han allowed himself a sigh. “Understood,” he murmured, careful to maintain a straight face. Sometimes a particularly clever and perceptive man could sense a satisfied grin even over an audio comm channel. Not that this particular Imperial appeared to be either clever or perceptive. “You heard him, pilot,” he continued. “Turn us around. Again, Captain, thanks for the rescue.”
He climbed out of the quad seat and headed back up the ladder. “Captain Solo, I demand to know what’s happening,” one of the passengers said stiffly as Han crossed the lounge on his way back to the cockpit.
“We’re taking you to the rendezvous,” Han told him, putting on his best puzzled-and-innocent look. “Why?”
Before the other could recover enough to try the question again, Han had made his escape.
Chewbacca had them well on their way out of Teardrop’s gravity well by the time Han dropped into his seat. “Nice move, Chewie,” he said as he keyed for a status report. The attack had added a few new dents to the aft armor plating, but considering how many there were already, it wasn’t likely anyone would notice. “It’s always nice when we can obey an Imperial order. For a change.”
Behind them, Luke came into the cockpit. “He actually bought it?” he asked, leaning over Han’s shoulder to gaze out at the Star Destroyer in the distance.
“Why not?” Han countered. “He saw us heading in, and we told him we were heading in. Sometimes you just have to help people think what you want them to.”
“I suppose,” Luke said, still sounding doubtful. “They still might have decided to board and search us.”
“Not a chance,” Han said. “Just because they ride around in big fancy ships doesn’t make them smart. They’re here to hunt Rebels, not inspect cargo. Once Chewie had us turned back inward, the only real question was whether the captain would feel like giving his gunners some target practice.”
“Too bad they’ll never know what they missed,” Luke murmured, taking a last look and then sitting back down. “Sure glad you two are on our side.”
Han frowned over his shoulder. But Luke was peering at the nav computer display, apparently completely oblivious to what he’d just said. Han shifted his gaze to Chewbacca, to find the Wookiee looking sideways at him. “What?” he demanded.
The other shrugged his massive shoulders and turned back to his board. Han glanced at Luke again, but the kid had apparently missed the byplay completely.
He turned back to his board, a sour taste in his mouth. Our side. Luke’s side, in other words. And Princess Leia Organa’s side, and General Rieekan’s, and probably the whole blasted Rebellion’s.
Trouble was, Han couldn’t for the life of him remember when the Rebellion had become his side.
So he’d dusted those TIE fighters off Luke during that lunatic Yavin battle. Big deal. That had been strictly a favor to the kid, and maybe a little payback for the way the Imperials had dragged him aboard the Death Star and then walked all over the Falcon with their grubby feet. He didn’t mind the Rebels being grateful for that.
But it didn’t mean he’d enlisted in the Big Cause.
Chewbacca was all set to do so, of course. His personal history with the Empire, plus the way they had treated his people in general, had left him with a deep hatred for them. He would enlist in the Rebellion in a heartbeat if Han gave the okay.
But Han wasn’t going to let anyone’s passion drive him on this one. Not Chewie’s, and certainly not Luke’s. He had his own life to lead.
The Star Destroyer was settling into orbit as the Falcon made the jump to lightspeed.
With a final burst, more felt than really heard, the Reprisal’s turbolasers fell silent.
Seated on the portside bench in the number three stormtrooper drop ship, Daric LaRone notched up his helmet’s audio enhancers, wondering if the battle might be continuing with a more distant set of the Star Destroyer’s weapons banks. But he could hear nothing, and after a moment he eased the enhancement back down again. “Wonder what that was all about,” he murmured.
Beside him, Saberan Marcross shrugged slightly, the movement eliciting a slight crackle from his armor. “Maybe the Rebels tried to make a run for it,” he murmured back.
“If they did, they didn’t get very far,” Taxtro Grave commented from his seat on the starboard bench, shifting his grip on his long BlasTech T-28 repeating sniper rifle.
“Look at the bright side,” Joak Quiller suggested from beside him. “If they’re all dead, we can cancel this op and go someplace more promising.”
“Whoever’s talking back there, stow it,” an authoritative voice called from the front of the drop ship.
“Yes, sir,” Marcross answered for all of them.
LaRone leaned out slightly to look at the scowling officer seated by Lieutenant Colf. Emblazoned across his chest were the rank bars of a major; above the insignia was a face LaRone couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “Who is that?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“Major Drelfin,” Marcross whispered back. “ISB.”
LaRone leaned back again, a chill running through him. The Imperial Security Bureau was the darkest and most brutal of Emperor Palpatine’s tools. “What’s he doing on the Reprisal?”
“Someone up the chain must have decided we needed extra help,” Marcross said. His tone was carefully neutral, but LaRone knew him well enough to recognize the contempt beneath the words. “They brought in a few ISB men to direct the assault.”
LaRone grimaced. “I see,” he said, matching the other’s tone.
From the drop ship’s cockpit came a warning buzz. “Stand by for drop,” the pilot called. “Drop in five.”
LaRone looked across the aisle at Quiller, noting the other’s subtle squirming. Quiller was himself an excellent pilot, and consequently a rotten passenger. “Easy,” he murmured.
Quiller cocked his head slightly, and LaRone smiled at the strained-patient expression he knew the other was giving him from behind the anonymous white helmet faceplate.
Abruptly the bench lurched beneath him, and the drop ship was away.
Behind his own faceplate LaRone’s smile faded, his thoughts drifting back to that fateful day ten standard years ago when the Imperial recruiters had come to Copperline and set up shop. In his mind’s eye he saw himself joining with the other teens as they flocked around the booth, dazzled by the presentation, the crisp uniforms, and the unspoken but obvious implication that this was the best and quickest way off their dead-end little world.
Only this time, in his daydream, LaRone said no.
He’d believed in the Empire at first. He really had. He’d been ten when the Fleet and infantry had come in force and spent five months clearing out the pirate nests that had plagued Copperline for decades. Eight years later, when the recruiters had come, he’d jumped at the chance to join such a noble group of people. Three years after that, when he’d been offered a spot in the elite Imperial stormtrooper corps, he’d jumped even harder, working and sweating and praying for the chance to be worthy of this ultimate challenge.
For six years everything had gone well. He’d served with all his heart and strength, fighting against the forces of evil and chaos that threatened to destroy Emperor Palpatine’s New Order. And he’d served with distinction, or so at least his commanders had thought.
For LaRone himself, awards and citations meant nothing. He was wearing the white armor, and he was making a difference. That was what mattered.
But then had come Elriss, where an entire town had had to stand out in the pouring rain for six hours while their identities were double- and triple-checked. After that had come Bompreil, and all those terrible civilian casualties as they’d fought to root out a Rebel cell.
And then had come Alderaan.
LaRone shifted uncomfortably on the bench. The details still weren’t entirely clear, but the official reports all agreed that the planet had been a center of Rebel strength, and that it had been destroyed only when it defied an order to surrender the traitors.
LaRone certainly couldn’t fault the motivation. The Rebels were growing ever stronger, ever bolder, ever more dangerous. They had to be stopped before they destroyed everything the Emperor had created and dragged the galaxy back into more of the chaos of the Clone Wars era.
But surely the entire planet couldn’t have been on the Rebels’ side. Could it?
And then the quiet rumors had started. Some said that Alderaan hadn’t been a Rebel base at all, that its destruction had been nothing more than a field test of the Empire’s new Death Star. Others whispered that Grand Moff Tarkin, the Death Star’s borderline-psychotic commander, had destroyed all those billions of people over a personal grudge between him and Bail Organa.
But it almost didn’t matter what the reason was. The bottom line was that the response had been light-years beyond any provocation the Rebels could possibly have put together.
Something was happening to the Empire that LaRone had served so long and so well. Something terrible.
And LaRone himself was stuck right in the middle of it.
“Ground in three minutes,” Major Drelfin called from the front of the drop ship. “Stormtroopers, prepare to deploy.”
LaRone took a deep breath, forcing the doubts away. He was an Imperial stormtrooper, and he would do his duty. Because that was all that mattered.
The first of the speeder bike drop ships came to a cautious hover a couple of meters off the ground. As the ramps came down, Korlo Brightwater gunned his Aratech 74-Z Speeder Bike and roared out into the afternoon sunlight.
“TBR Four-seven-nine, pull it back,” the tart voice of his commander, Lieutenant Natrom, growled in his ear. “Re-form to Search Pattern Jenth.”
“Four-seven-nine: acknowledged,” Brightwater said, taking a quick look around as he turned into a wide circle that would bring him back to the rest of the scout troopers still maneuvering their way out of the transport. They’d come in on a ground-skimming course just to the north of a set of low, tree-sprinkled hills, with the edge of their target town a couple of hundred meters away on the far side. Activating his helmet’s sensors, he gave the hills a quick but careful scan as he circled back toward the transport. There didn’t seem to be activity anywhere, of any sort, which struck him as highly suspicious. The hills included a picnic area, several walking paths, and half a dozen trees that had been patiently nurtured and manipulated over the decades into an elaborate children’s climbing structure. Someone from town ought to be taking his or her leisure out here on such a fine, quiet afternoon.
But there was no one. Something, apparently, was keeping the townspeople indoors today.
Such as the news of an imminent Imperial raid?
Brightwater shook his head in irritation. So the whole thing was a bust. The word had leaked, and any Rebels who might have been hiding here were halfway to the Outer Rim by now. “Command; TBR Four-seven-nine,” he called into his comm. “No activity in staging area. The operation may be blown. Repeat, the operation—”
“Scout troopers, you are cleared to secure the perimeter,” an unfamiliar voice cut in.
Brightwater frowned. “Command, did you copy?” he asked. “I said the lack of activity—”
“TBR Four-seven-nine, you will restrict your comments to tactical reports,” the new voice again interrupted. “All transports: move in.”
Brightwater craned his neck. The stormtrooper drop ships were visible now high above him, dropping toward the ground like hunting avians moving for the kill.
Only there wasn’t anything down here worth killing anymore.
A movement to his right caught his eye, and he looked back as his partner, Tibren, came alongside. Brightwater lifted his hand in mute question; the other scout shook his head in equally silent warning.
Brightwater scowled. But Tibren was right. Whoever this idiot was running things, he was either too single-minded or too stupid to see reason. Nothing now for the stormtroopers to do but go along for the ride and treat the whole thing as just another training exercise. He nodded Tibren an acknowledgment and gunned his speeder toward his designated containment sector.
By the time they’d finished their encirclement the drop ships were down, their heavy guns sweeping over the rows of mostly single-story buildings, their hatches disgorging their complements of stormtroopers and uniformed command officers. Brightwater kept his speeder moving, watching with professional interest as the troops formed themselves into a double ring and converged on the town. For a change, everything seemed to be going perfectly, without even the small glitches that normally accompanied an operation this size. It really was a pity there weren’t any Rebels left in town to appreciate it.
The stormtroopers and officers disappeared from view, heading between and into the buildings, and Brightwater shifted his attention to the area outside the scout troopers’ perimeter. The Rebels had almost certainly fled the planet, but there were occasional cells with more audacity than brains who elected to stay behind and try to put together an ambush.
Brightwater rather hoped this bunch had gone that route. It would keep the afternoon from being a complete waste, and it would give the stormtroopers the chance to blast them out here in the open instead of having to sort them out from the civilians.
He had curved to the crest of the nearest hill, his helmet sensors on full power, when he heard the sound of blasterfire from behind him. He swung his speeder sharply around, searching the perimeter on the far side of town. But all the scout troopers over there were still on their speeders, with no indication that anyone was shooting at them. There was another volley of blasterfire, and this time he realized that it was coming from inside the town itself.
He brought his speeder to a halt, frowning. The volleys had been replaced by a less organized stutter, but the shots all carried the distinctive pitch of the stormtroopers’ own BlasTech E-11 rifles. Where was the cacophonous mix of military, sporting, and self-defense weaponry that was practically the trademark of the Rebel Alliance?
And then, with a sudden chill, he understood.
He revved his speeder back to full speed, twisting its nose down the hills and toward town. What in the name of the Emperor did they think they were doing?
“TBR Four-seven-nine, return to your post,” Lieutenant Natrom’s voice said in his earphone.
Brightwater flicked out his tongue to the comm’s selector control, switching to the squad’s private frequency. “Sir, something’s happening in town,” he said urgently. “Request permission to investigate.”
“Permission denied,” Natrom said. His voice was under rigid control, but Brightwater could hear the anger beneath it. “Return to your post.”
“Sir—”
“That’s an order, TBR Four-seven-nine,” Natrom said. “It won’t be repeated.”
Brightwater took a deep breath. But he knew Natrom, and he knew that tone. Whatever was happening, there was nothing either of them could do about it. “Yes, sir,” he said. Taking another deep breath, trying to calm himself, he turned his speeder back around.
The sun had set over the western horizon before the blasterfire finally came to an end.
THE NEW REPUBLIC
(5–25 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
The destruction of the second Death Star and the death of Emperor Palpatine—the climactic conclusion of Return of the Jedi—has shaken the Empire to its core. While the remnant of the loyal Imperials settles in for a long, drawn-out last stand, the victorious Rebel Alliance and its supporters found a galactic governing authority they name the New Republic. Troops and warships are donated to the cause, as New Republic military leaders forge plans to seize Imperial fortress worlds, invade the Core Worlds, and retake Coruscant itself. Eventually, the Imperial Remnant is pushed back to a small part of the Outer Rim, and the New Republic is finally able to focus on restoring just and democratic government to the galaxy.
At last the heroes of the Rebellion are free to pursue their own lives. Han and Leia marry … but before the birth of their twins, Jacen and Jaina, the galaxy is once again torn asunder by war, as the Imperial forces—under the control of military mastermind Grand Admiral Thrawn—step up their campaign of raids against the New Republic. Even after Thrawn is defeated, the Imperial forces forge on, harrying the New Republic and Luke’s nascent Jedi academy—the start of Luke’s dream to rebuild the Jedi Order from the ground up. Plagues, insurrections, and rogue warlords add to the chaos and push the New Republic back a step for every two steps it takes forward in its quest for peace and prosperity for all. Meanwhile, Leia becomes Chief of State of the New Republic, and the Solos’ third child, a boy they name Anakin, after his grandfather, is born; Luke has met Mara Jade, a secret dark side apprentice to the Emperor whom he helps bring into the light, and the two subsequently fall in love and marry.
Finally, after a series of further setbacks and plots against the young galactic government and Luke’s Jedi, a peace treaty formally ends the long conflict between the New Republic and the remnants of the Empire. The events of these years are the answer to the question … “What happened after the movies?”
If you’re a reader looking to dive into the New Republic era, here are three great starting points:
• X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, by Michael A. Stackpole: A taste of life at the edge, Rogue Squadron and the subsequent X-Wing novels bring to life Wedge Antilles and his brave, sometimes rambunctious fellow pilots in fast-paced adventures that switch smoothly and easily between entertaining repartee and tense battlefield action.
• Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn: The book that reintroduced a generation of fans to Star Wars is full of the elements that made the movies great—space battles, intriguing villains, and derring-do.
• Before the Storm, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell: With a harder sci-fi edge to Star Wars, this novel features the classic heroes Han, Luke, and Leia, and explores everything from military forensics to the nature of the Force.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the New Republic era.
1
You’re good, Corran, but you’re no Luke Skywalker. Corran Horn’s cheeks still burned at the memory of Commander Antilles’s evaluation of his last simulator exercise. The line had been a simple comment, not meant to be cruel nor delivered that way, but it cut deep into Corran. I’ve never tried to suggest I’m that good of a pilot.
He shook his head. No, you just wanted it to be self-evident and easily recognized by everyone around you. Reaching out he flicked the starter switches for the X-wing simulator’s engines. “Green One has four starts and is go.” All around him in the cockpit various switches, buttons, and monitors flashed to life. “Primary and secondary power is at full.”
Ooryl Qrygg, his Gand wingman, reported similar start-up success in a high-pitched voice. “Green Two is operational.”
Green Three and Four checked in, then the external screens came alive projecting an empty starfield. “Whistler, have you finished the navigation calculations?”
The green and white R2 unit seated behind Corran hooted, then the navdata spilled out over Corran’s main monitor. He punched a button sending the same coordinates out to the other pilots in Green Flight. “Go to light speed and rendezvous on the Redemption.”
As Corran engaged the X-wing’s hyperdrive, the stars elongated themselves into white cylinders, then snapped back into pinpoints and began to revolve slowly, transforming themselves into a tunnel of white light. Corran fought the urge to use the stick to compensate for the roll. In space, and especially hyperspace, up and down were relative. How his ship moved through hyperspace didn’t really matter—as long as it remained on the course Whistler had calculated and had attained sufficient velocity before entering hyperspace, he’d arrive intact.
Flying into a black hole would actually make this run easier. Every pilot dreaded the Redemption run. The scenario was based on an Imperial attack on evacuation ships back before the first Death Star had been destroyed. While the Redemption waited for three Medevac shuttles and the corvette Korolev to dock and off-load wounded, the Imperial frigate Warspite danced around the system and dumped out TIE fighters and added bombers to the mix to do as much damage as they could.
The bombers, with a full load of missiles, could do a lot of damage. All the pilots called the Redemption scenario by another name: the Requiem scenario. The Warspite would only deploy four starfighters and a half-dozen bombers—known in pilot slang as “eyeballs” and “dupes” respectively—but it would do so in a pattern that made it all but impossible for the pilots to save the Korolev. The corvette was just one big target, and the TIE bombers had no trouble unloading all their missiles into it.
Stellar pinpoints elongated again as the fighter came out of hyperspace. Off to the port side Corran saw the Redemption. Moments later Whistler reported that the other fighters and all three Medevac shuttles had arrived. The fighters checked in and the first shuttle began its docking maneuver with the Redemption.
“Green One, this is Green Four.”
“Go ahead, Four.”
“By the book, or are we doing something fancy?”
Corran hesitated before answering. By book, Nawara Ven had referred to the general wisdom about the scenario. It stated that one pilot should play fleethund and race out to engage the first TIE flight while the other three fighters remained in close as backup. As long as three fighters stayed at home, it appeared, the Warspite dropped ships off at a considerable distance from the Korolev. When they didn’t, it got bolder and the whole scenario became very bloody.
The problem with going by the book was that it wasn’t a very good strategy. It meant one pilot had to deal with five TIEs—two eyeballs and three dupes—all by himself, then turn around and engage five more. Even with them coming in waves, the chances of being able to succeed against those odds were slim.
Doing it any other way was disastrous. Besides, what loyal son of Corellia ever had any use for odds?
“By the book. Keep the home fires burning and pick up after me.”
“Done. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Corran reached up with his right hand and pressed it against the lucky charm he wore on a chain around his neck. Though he could barely feel the coin through his gloves and the thick material of his flight suit, the familiar sensation of the metal resting against his breastbone brought a smile to his face. It worked for you a lot, Dad, let’s hope all its luck hasn’t run out yet.
He openly acknowledged that he’d been depending quite a bit on luck to see him through the difficulties of settling in with the Alliance forces. Learning the slang took some work—moving from calling TIE starfighters “eyeballs” to calling Interceptors “squints” made a certain amount of sense, but many other terms had been born of logic that escaped him. Everything about the Rebellion seemed odd in comparison to his previous life and fitting in had not been easy.
Nor will be winning this scenario.
The Korolev materialized and moved toward the Redemption, prompting Corran to begin his final check. He’d mulled the scenario over in his mind time and time again. In previous runs, when he served as a home guard to someone else’s fleethund, he’d had Whistler record traces on the TIE timing patterns, flight styles, and attack vectors. While different cadets flew the TIE half of the simulations, the craft dictated their performance and a lot of their initial run sequence had been preprogrammed.
A sharp squawk from Whistler alerted Corran to the Warspite’s arrival. “Great, eleven klicks aft.” Pulling the stick around to the right, Corran brought the X-wing into a wide turn. At the end of it he punched the throttle up to full power. Hitting another switch up to the right, he locked the S-foils into attack position. “Green One engaging.”
Rhysati’s voice came cool and strong through the radio. “Be all over them like drool on a Hutt.”
“I’ll do my best, Green Three.” Corran smiled and waggled the X-wing as he flew back through the Alliance formation and out toward the Warspite. Whistler announced the appearance of three TIE bombers with a low tone, then brought the sound up as two TIE fighters joined them.
“Whistler, tag the bombers as targets one, two, and three.” As the R2 unit complied with that order, Corran pushed shield power full to front and brought his laser targeting program up on the main monitor. With his left hand he adjusted the sighting calibration knob on the stick and got the two fighters. Good, looks like three klicks between the eyeballs and the bombers.
Corran’s right hand again brushed the coin beneath his flight suit. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then settled his hand on the stick and let his thumb hover over the firing button. At two klicks the heads-up display painted a yellow box around the lead TIE fighter. The box went green as the fighter’s image locked into the HUD’s targeting cross and Whistler’s shrill bleat filled the cockpit. Corran’s thumb hit the button, sending three bursts of laser bolts at the lead fighter.
The first set missed but the second and third blasted through the spherical cockpit. The hexagonal solar panels snapped off and spun forward through space while the ion engines exploded into an expanding ball of incandescent gas.
Corran kicked the X-wing up in a ninety-degree snap-roll and sliced through the center of the explosion. Laser fire from the second fighter lit up his forward shields, making it impossible for him to get a good visual line on the TIE. Whistler yowled, complaining about being a target. Corran hurried a shot and knew he hit, but the TIE flashed past and continued on in at the Korolev.
Time to write a new chapter for the book on the Requiem scenario. Corran throttled back almost all the way to zero and let the X-wing decelerate. “Whistler, bring up target one.”
The image of the first TIE bomber filled his monitor. Corran switched over to proton torpedo target control. The HUD changed to a larger box and Whistler began beeping as he worked supplying data to the targeting computer for a missile lock.
“Green One, your velocity is down to one percent. Do you need help?”
“Negative, Green Two.”
“Corran, what are you doing?”
“Making the book a short story.” I hope.
The HUD went red and Whistler’s tone became constant. Corran punched the button and launched the first missile. “Acquire target two.” The HUD flashed yellow, then red, and the pilot launched the second missile.
Numbers scrolled away to zero as the missiles streaked in at their targets. Two kilometers away the first missile hit, shredding the first TIE bomber. Seconds later the second missile hit its target. A novalike explosion lit the simulator’s cockpit, then melted into the blackness of space.
“Acquire target three.”
Even as he gave the order he knew the rate of closure between the bomber and his ship would make the last missile shot all but impossible. “Cancel three.” Corran throttled up again as the third bomber sailed past and brought his ship around. He switched back to laser targeting and climbed right up on the bomber’s stern.
The dupe’s pilot tried to evade him. He juked the double-hulled ship to the left, then started a long turn to the right, but Corran was of no mind to lose him. He cut his speed, which kept the bomber in front of him, then followed it in its turn. As he leveled out again on its tail, he triggered two laser bursts and the targeting computer reported hull damage.
The bomber’s right wing came up in a roll and Corran did the same thing. Had he continued to fly level, the X-wing’s lasers would have passed on either side of the bomber’s fuselage, giving the bomber a few seconds more of life. Keeping the bomber centered in his crosshairs, Corran hit twice more and the bulky craft disintegrated before him.
Pushing his throttle to full, Corran scanned for the fighter he’d missed. He found it two klicks out and going in toward the Korolev. He also found five more TIEs coming in from the other side of the corvette, eighteen kilometers away. Damn, the bomber took more time than I had to give it.
He brought the torpedo targeting program back up and locked on to the remaining fighter. The HUD seemed to take forever before it went red and acquired a lock. Corran fired a missile and watched it blast through the fighter, then turned his attention to the new TIEs.
“Green One, do you want us to engage?”
Corran shook his head. “Negative, Two. Warspite is still here and could dump another flight.” He sighed. “Move to intercept the fighters, but don’t go beyond a klick from the Korolev.”
“On it.”
Good, they can tie the fighters up while I dust these dupes. Corran studied the navigational data Whistler was giving him. The Korolev, the bombers, and his X-wing formed a shrinking triangle. If he flew directly at the bombers he would end up flying in an arc, which would take more time than he had and let them get close enough to launch their missiles at the corvette. That would be less than useless as far as he was concerned.
“Whistler, plot me an intercept point six klicks out from the Korolev.”
The R2 whistled blithely, as if that calculation was so simple even Corran should have been able to do it in his head. Steering toward it, Corran saw he’d have just over a minute to deal with the bombers before they were in firing range on the Korolev. Not enough time.
Flicking two switches, Corran redirected generator energy from recharging his shields and lasers into the engines. It took the acceleration compensator a second to cycle up, so the ship’s burst of speed pushed Corran back into the padding of his command seat. This better work.
“Green One, the Warspite has hyped. Are we released to engage fighters?”
“Affirmative, Three. Go get them.” Corran frowned for a second, knowing his fellow pilots would make short work of the TIE fighters. They would deny him a clean sweep, but he’d willingly trade two TIEs for the corvette. Commander Antilles might have gotten them all himself, but then he’s got two Death Stars painted on the side of his X-wing.
“Whistler, mark each of the bombers four, five, and six.” Range to intercept was three klicks and he had added thirty seconds to his fighting time. “Acquire four.”
The targeting computer showed him to be coming in at a forty-five-degree angle to the flight path of his target, which meant he was way off target. He quickly punched the generator back into recharging lasers and his shields, then pulled even more energy from his quartet of Incom 4L4 fusial thrust engines and shunted it into recharging his weapons and shields.
The resource redirection brought his speed down. Corran pulled back on the stick, easing the X-wing into a turn that brought him head-on into the bombers. Tapping the stick to the left, he centered the targeting box on the first of the dupes.
The HUD started yellow, then quickly went red. Corran fired a missile. “Acquire five.” The HUD started red and Whistler’s keen echoed through the cockpit. The Corellian fired a second missile. “Acquire six.”
Whistler screeched.
Corran looked down at his display. Scrolling up the screen, sandwiched between the reports of missile hits on the three bombers, he saw a notation about Green Two. “Green Two, report.”
“He’s gone, One.”
“A fighter got him?”
“No time to chat …” The comm call from the Twi’lek in Green Four ended in a hiss of static.
“Rhysati?”
“Got one, Corran, but this last one is good.”
“Hang on.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Whistler, acquire six.”
The R2 unit hissed. The last bomber had already shot past the intercept point and was bearing in on the Korolev. The pilot had the wide-bodied craft slowly spinning, making it a difficult target for a missile lock. The Korolev, being as big as it was, would present large enough of a target that even a rolling ship could get a lock on it.
And once he has that lock, the Korolev is so much space junk. Corran switched back to lasers and pushed his X-wing forward. Even though two klicks separated them, he triggered a couple of laser blasts. He knew his chances of hitting were not good at that range, but the light from the bolts would shoot past the TIE and give the pilot something to think about. And I want him thinking about me, not that nerf-vette grazing there.
Corran redirected all power back into the engines and shot forward. Two more laser blasts caused the TIE bomber to shy a bit, but it had pushed into target-acquisition range. The ship’s roll began to slow as the pilot fixated on his target, then, as Corran brought his lasers to bear, the bomber jinked and cut away to port.
The Corellian’s eyes narrowed. Bror Jace has got to be flying that thing. He thinks it’s payback time. The other pilot, a human from Thyferra, was—in Corran’s opinion—the second best pilot in the training squadron. He’s going to kill the Korolev and I’ll never hear the end of it. Unless …
Corran pulled all his shield energy forward and left his aft as naked as the shieldless TIE bomber. Following Jace through a barrel roll, he kept the throttle full forward. As they leveled out again Corran triggered a snapshot at the bomber. It caught a piece of one wing, but Jace dove beneath the X-wing’s line of fire. Here we go!
Corran shoved his stick forward to follow the bomber’s dive, but because his rate of speed was a good twenty percent faster than that of Jace’s ship, the X-wing moved into a broad loop. By the time Corran inverted to finish the turn off, Jace’s bomber came back up and banked in on the X-wing’s tail.
Before the bomber could unload a missile or two into his aft, Corran broke the fighter hard to port and carved across the bomber’s line of fire. Basic maneuver with a basic response. Without even glancing at his instruments, and paying no attention to Whistler’s squealed warning, Corran cut engine power back into recharging his shields. One more second.
Jace’s response to Corran’s break had been a reverse-throttle hop. By bringing the nose of the bomber up in a steep climb, then rolling out in the direction of the turn, Jace managed to stay inside the arc of the X-wing’s turn. As the bomber leveled off, it closed very quickly with the X-wing—too quickly for a missile lock, but not a laser shot.
The TIE bomber shrieked in at the X-wing. Collision warning klaxons wailed. Corran could feel Jace’s excitement as the X-wing loomed larger. He knew the other pilot would snap off a quick shot, then come around again, angry at having overshot the X-wing, but happy to smoke Corran before taking the Korolev.
The X-wing pilot hit a switch and shifted all shield power to the aft shields.
The deflector shield materialized as a demisphere approximately twenty meters behind the X-wing. Designed to dissipate both energy and kinetic weapons, it had no trouble protecting the fighter from the bomber’s twin laser blasts. Had the bomber used missiles, the shields could even have handled all the damage they could do, though that would have been enough to destroy the shields themselves.
The TIE bomber, which massed far more than the missiles it carried, should have punched through the shields and might even have destroyed the fighter, but it hit at an angle and glanced off. The collision did blast away half the power of the aft shield and bounced the X-wing around, but otherwise left the snubfighter undamaged.
The same could not be said of the unshielded bomber. The impact with the shield was roughly equivalent to a vehicle hitting a ferrocrete wall at sixty kilometers per hour. While that might not do a land vehicle much damage, land vehicles are decidedly less delicate than starfighters. The starboard wing crumpled inward, wrapping itself around the bomber’s cockpit. Both pods of the ship twisted out of alignment so the engines shot it off into an uncontrolled tumble through the simulator’s dataspace.
“Green Three, did you copy that?”
Corran got no response. “Whistler, what happened to Three?”
The R2 unit gave him a mournful tone.
Sithspawn. Corran flipped the shield control to equalize things fore and aft. “Where is he?”
The image of a lone TIE fighter making a strafing run on the Korolev appeared on Corran’s monitor. The clumsy little craft skittered along over the corvette’s surface, easily dodging its weak return fire. That’s seriously gutsy for a TIE fighter. Corran smiled. Or arrogant, and time to make him pay for that arrogance.
The Corellian brought his proton torpedo targeting program up and locked on to the TIE. It tried to break the lock, but turbolaser fire from the Korolev boxed it in. Corran’s HUD went red and he triggered the torpedo. “Scratch one eyeball.”
The missile shot straight in at the fighter, but the pilot broke hard to port and away, causing the missile to overshoot the target. Nice flying! Corran brought his X-wing over and started down to loop in behind the TIE, but as he did so, the TIE vanished from his forward screen and reappeared in his aft arc. Yanking the stick hard to the right and pulling it back, Corran wrestled the X-wing up and to starboard, then inverted and rolled out to the left.
A laser shot jolted a tremor through the simulator’s couch. Lucky thing I had all shields aft! Corran reinforced them with energy from his lasers, then evened them out fore and aft. Jinking the fighter right and left, he avoided laser shots coming in from behind, but they all came in far closer than he liked.
He knew Jace had been in the bomber, and Jace was the only pilot in the unit who could have stayed with him. Except for our leader. Corran smiled broadly. Coming to see how good I really am, Commander Antilles? Let me give you a clinic. “Make sure you’re in there solid, Whistler, because we’re going for a little ride.”
Corran refused to let the R2’s moan slow him down. A snap-roll brought the X-wing up on its port wing. Pulling back on the stick yanked the fighter’s nose up away from the original line of flight. The TIE stayed with him, then tightened up on the arc to close distance. Corran then rolled another ninety degrees and continued the turn into a dive. Throttling back, Corran hung in the dive for three seconds, then hauled back hard on the stick and cruised up into the TIE fighter’s aft.
The X-wing’s laser fire missed wide to the right as the TIE cut to the left. Corran kicked his speed up to full and broke with the TIE. He let the X-wing rise above the plane of the break, then put the fighter through a twisting roll that ate up enough time to bring him again into the TIE’s rear. The TIE snapped to the right and Corran looped out left.
He watched the tracking display as the distance between them grew to be a kilometer and a half, then slowed. Fine, you want to go nose to nose? I’ve got shields and you don’t. If Commander Antilles wanted to commit virtual suicide, Corran was happy to oblige him. He tugged the stick back to his sternum and rolled out in an inversion loop. Coming at you!
The two starfighters closed swiftly. Corran centered his foe in the crosshairs and waited for a dead shot. Without shields the TIE fighter would die with one burst, and Corran wanted the kill to be clean. His HUD flicked green as the TIE juked in and out of the center, then locked green as they closed.
The TIE started firing at maximum range and scored hits. At that distance the lasers did no real damage against the shields, prompting Corran to wonder why Wedge was wasting the energy. Then, as the HUD’s green color started to flicker, realization dawned. The bright bursts on the shields are a distraction to my targeting! I better kill him now!
Corran tightened down on the trigger button, sending red laser needles stabbing out at the closing TIE fighter. He couldn’t tell if he had hit anything. Lights flashed in the cockpit and Whistler started screeching furiously. Corran’s main monitor went black, his shields were down, and his weapons controls were dead.
The pilot looked left and right. “Where is he, Whistler?”
The monitor in front of him flickered to life and a diagnostic report began to scroll by. Bloodred bordered the damage reports. “Scanners, out; lasers, out; shields, out; engine, out! I’m a wallowing Hutt just hanging here in space.”
With the X-wing’s scanners being dead, the R2 droid couldn’t locate the TIE fighter if it was outside the droid’s scanner range. Whistler informed Corran of this with an anxious bleat.
“Easy, Whistler, get me my shields back first. Hurry.” Corran continued to look around for the TIE fighter. Letting me stew, are you, sir? You’ll finish the Korolev then come for me. The pilot frowned and felt a cold chill run down his spine. You’re right, I’m no Luke Skywalker. I’m glad you think I’m not bad, but I want to be the best!
Suddenly the starfield went black and the simulator pod hissed as it cracked open. The canopy lifted up and the sound of laughter filled the cockpit. Corran almost flicked the blast shield down on his helmet to prevent his three friends from seeing his embarrassed blush. Nope, might as well take my punishment. He stood and doffed his helmet, then shook his head. “At least it’s over.”
The Twi’lek, Nawara Ven, clapped his hands. “Such modesty, Corran.”
“Huh?”
The blond woman next to the Twi’lek beamed up at him. “You won the Redemption scenario.”
“What?”
The grey-green Gand nodded his head and placed his helmet on the nose of Corran’s simulator. “You had nine kills. Jace is not pleased.”
“Thanks for the good news, Ooryl, but I still got killed in there.” Corran hopped out of the simulator. “The pilot who got you three—Commander Antilles—he got me, too.”
The Twi’lek shrugged. “He’s been at this a bit longer than I have, so it is not a surprise he got me.”
Rhysati shook her head, letting her golden hair drape down over her shoulders. “The surprise was that he took so long to get us, really. Are you certain he killed you?”
Corran frowned. “I don’t think I got a mission end message.”
“Clearly you have too little experience of dying in these simulators because you’d know if you did.” Rhysati laughed lightly. “He may have hit you, Corran, but he didn’t kill you. You survived and won.”
Corran blinked, then smiled. “And I got Bror before he got the Korolev. I’ll take that.”
“As well you should.” A brown-haired man with crystal blue eyes shouldered his way between Ooryl and Nawara. “You’re an exceptionally good pilot.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The man offered Corran his hand. “Thought I had you, but when you shot out my engines, your missile caught up with me. Nice job.”
Corran shook the man’s hand hesitantly. The man wore a black flight suit with no name or rank insignia on it, though it did have Hoth, Endor, and Bakura battle tabs sewn on the left sleeve. “You know, you’re one hot hand in a TIE.”
“Nice of you to say, Mr. Horn—I’m a bit rusty, but I really enjoyed this run.” He released Corran’s hand. “Next time I’ll give you more of a fight.”
A woman wearing a Lieutenant’s uniform touched the TIE pilot on the arm. “Admiral Ackbar is ready to see you now, sir. If you will follow me.”
The TIE pilot nodded to the four X-wing pilots. “Good flying, all of you. Congratulations on winning the scenario.”
Corran stared at the man’s retreating back. “I thought Commander Antilles was in that TIE. I mean it had to be someone as good as him to get you three.”
The ends of Nawara Ven’s head tails twitched. “Apparently he is that good.”
Rhysati nodded. “He flew circles around me.”
“At least you saw him.” The Gand drummed his trio of fingers against the hull of Corran’s simulator. “He caught Ooryl as Ooryl fixed on his wingman. Ooryl is free hydrogen in simspace. That man is very good.”
“Sure, but who is he?” Corran frowned. “He’s not Luke Skywalker, obviously, but he was with Rogue Squadron at Bakura and survived Endor.”
The Twi’lek’s red eyes sparked. “The Endor tab had a black dot in the middle—he survived the Death Star run.”
Rhysati looped her right arm around Corran’s neck and brought her fist up gently under his chin. “What difference does it make who he is?”
“Rhys, he shot up three of our best pilots, had me dead in space, and says he’s a bit rusty! I want to know who he is because he’s decidedly dangerous.”
“He is that, but today he’s not the most dangerous pilot. That’s you.” She linked her other arm through Nawara’s right elbow. “So, Corran, you forget you were a Security officer and, Nawara, you forget you were a lawyer and let this thing drop. Today we’re all pilots, we’re all on the same side”—she smiled sweetly—“and the man who beat the Redemption scenario is about to make good on all those dinner and drink promises he made to talk his wingmates into helping him win.”
THE NEW JEDI ORDER
(25–40 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
A quarter century after A New Hope and the destruction of the Death Star, the galaxy is free of wide-scale conflicts—but the New Republic must contend with many regional brushfires. And Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order faces its own growing pains: Some New Republic officials want to rein in the Jedi, leading Luke to wonder if the Jedi Council should be restored.
On the planet Rhommamool, Leia Organa Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Jaina Solo meet with a mysterious rabble-rouser named Nom Anor. Anor rejects Leia’s diplomatic entreaties, but she’s more disturbed by what she finds when she reaches out to him in the Force: nothing. It’s as if he isn’t there.
Anor is a secret agent of the Yuuzhan Vong, powerful warriors from another galaxy who regard technology as blasphemous, relying on biological constructs to serve as their starships, weapons, and communicators. Long ago, a devastating war destroyed much of the Yuuzhan Vong’s galaxy and cut them off from the Force, sending their clans across the intergalactic void in search of a new home. Now they are at the edge of the Star Wars galaxy, ready to invade.
As head of the New Jedi Order, Luke is central to the galaxy’s defense; Leia’s skills as a former Chief of State and respected political adviser are also called on. The five-year war shakes the galaxy to its foundations. Technologically advanced worlds within the Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor are subjected to the newcomers’ biotechnology and altered into strange hybrids combining what they had been with the new Yuuzhan Vong ecosystem. Entire species are enslaved—or eradicated. The New Republic is ill prepared to meet the extragalactic threat, with regional rivalries, political dissension, and concern over the Imperial Remnant limiting the effectiveness of its military response. Wrangling in the Senate snarls the war plans, as do disagreements between planetary fleets and armies, while assassination and war thin the ranks of the New Republic’s leaders. Officers and pilots who battled for so long against the Empire, such as Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles, work feverishly to figure out how to outmaneuver their new enemies.
The invasion sorely challenges the Jedi, as well. Some take it upon themselves to meet the Yuuzhan Vong threat head-on, disdaining foot-dragging by politicians—and some of those skirt the dark side of the Force, giving in to their anger and fear as the Yuuzhan Vong ruin worlds and lives. The Yuuzhan Vong come to recognize the Jedi as the biggest threat to their plans, and begin hunting them down using New Republic traitors and bioengineered killers. At the forefront of the war against the Jedi are the Solo children—now teenagers and Jedi Knights in their own right. By the time the war is over, the Solo family will never be the same again.
The other heroes of the Rebellion, too, face personal struggles and tragedies. Luke fears for the life of his wife, Mara—infected with a Yuuzhan Vong–engineered disease—and for that of his newborn son, Ben, hunted by the Jedi’s enemies. Han and Leia’s losses are even harder to bear, as their oldest friends and children risk everything to stop the Yuuzhan Vong.
If you’re a reader looking to explore the epic tale of the Yuuzhan Vong war and the era of Luke’s New Jedi Order, the best place to start is with the first book in the series:
• The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime, by R. A. Salvatore: The first novel in the series introduces the pitiless Yuuzhan Vong and immediately makes clear that the heroes of the Rebellion are in mortal danger.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the New Jedi Order era.
ONE
Fraying Fabric
It was too peaceful out here, surrounded by the vacuum of space and with only the continual hum of the twin ion drives breaking the silence. While she loved these moments of peace, Leia Organa Solo also viewed them as an emotional trap, for she had been around long enough to understand the turmoil she would find at the end of this ride.
Like the end of every ride, lately.
Leia paused a moment before she entered the bridge of the Jade Sabre, the new shuttle her brother, Luke, had built for his wife, Mara Jade. Before her, and apparently oblivious to her, Mara and Jaina sat comfortably, side by side at the controls, talking and smiling. Leia focused on her daughter, Jaina, sixteen years old, but with the mature and calm demeanor of a veteran pilot. Jaina looked a lot like Leia, with long dark hair and brown eyes contrasting sharply with her smooth and creamy skin. Indeed, Leia saw much of herself in the girl—no, not girl, Leia corrected her own thoughts, but young woman. That same sparkle behind the brown eyes, mischievous, adventurous, determined.
That notion set Leia back a bit, for she recognized then that when she looked at Jaina, she was seeing not a reflection of herself but an image of the girl she had once been. A twinge of sadness caught her as she considered her own life now: a diplomat, a bureaucrat, a mediator, always trying to calm things down, always working for the peace and prosperity of the New Republic. Did she miss the days when the most common noise around her had been the sharp blare of a blaster or the hiss of a lightsaber? Was she sorry that those wild times had been replaced by the droning of the ion drives and the sharp bickering of one pride-wounded emissary after another?
Perhaps, Leia had to admit, but in looking at Jaina and those simmering dark eyes, she could take vicarious pleasure.
Another twinge—jealousy?—caught her by surprise, as Mara and Jaina erupted into laughter over some joke Leia had not overheard. But she pushed the absurd notion far from her mind as she considered her sister-in-law, Luke’s wife and Jaina’s tutor—at Jaina’s own request—in the ways of the Jedi. Mara was not a substitute mother for Jaina, but rather a big sister, and when Leia considered the fires that constantly burned in Mara’s green eyes, she understood that the woman could give to Jaina things that Leia could not, and that those lessons and that friendship would prove valuable indeed to her daughter. And so she forced aside her jealousy and was merely glad that Jaina had found such a friend.
She started onto the bridge, but paused again, sensing movement behind her. She knew before looking that it was Bolpuhr, her Noghri bodyguard, and barely gave him a glance as he glided to the side, moving so easily and gracefully that he reminded her of a lace curtain drifting lazily in a gentle breeze. She had accepted young Bolpuhr as her shadow for just that reason, for he was as unobtrusive as any bodyguard could be. Leia marveled at the young Noghri, at how his grace and silence covered a perfectly deadly fighting ability.
She held up her hand, indicating that Bolpuhr should remain out here, and though his usually emotionless face did flash Leia a quick expression of disappointment, she knew he would obey. Bolpuhr, and all the Noghri, would do anything Leia asked of them. He would jump off a cliff or dive into the hot end of an ion engine for her, and the only time she ever saw any sign of discontentment with her orders was when Bolpuhr thought she might be placing him in a difficult position to properly defend her.
As he was thinking now, Leia understood, though why in the world Bolpuhr would fear for her safety on her sister-in-law’s private shuttle was beyond her. Sometimes dedication could be taken a bit too far.
With a nod to Bolpuhr, she turned back to the bridge and crossed through the open doorway. “How much longer?” she asked, and was amused to see both Jaina and Mara jump in surprise at her sudden appearance.
In answer, Jaina increased the magnification on the forward screen, and instead of the unremarkable dots of light, there appeared an image of two planets, one mostly blue and white, the other reddish in hue, seemingly so close together that Leia wondered how it was that the blue-and-white one, the larger of the pair, had not grasped the other in its gravity and turned it into a moon. Parked halfway between them, perhaps a half a million kilometers from either, deck lights glittering in the shadows of the blue-and-white planet, loomed a Mon Calamari battle cruiser, the Mediator, one of the newest ships in the New Republic fleet.
“They’re at their closest,” Mara observed, referring to the planets.
“I beg your indulgence,” came a melodic voice from the doorway, and the protocol droid C-3PO walked into the room. “But I do not believe that is correct.”
“Close enough,” Mara said. She turned to Jaina. “Both Rhommamool and Osarian are ground based, technologically—”
“Rhommamool almost exclusively so!” C-3PO quickly added, drawing a scowl from all three of the women. Oblivious, he rambled on. “Even Osarian’s fleet must be considered marginal, at best. Unless, of course, one is using the Pantang Scale of Aero-techno Advancement, which counts even a simple landspeeder as highly as it would a Star Destroyer. Perfectly ridiculous scale.”
“Thank you, Threepio,” Leia said, her tone indicating that she had heard more than enough.
“They’ve both got missiles that can hit each other from this close distance, though,” Mara continued.
“Oh, yes!” the droid exclaimed. “And given the proximity of their relative elliptical orbits—”
“Thank you, Threepio,” Leia said.
“—they will remain within striking distance for some time,” C-3PO continued without missing a beat. “Months, at least. In fact, they will be even closer in two standard weeks, the closest they will be to each other for a decade to come.”
“Thank you, Threepio!” Mara and Leia said together.
“And the closest they have been for a decade previous,” the droid had to slip in, as the women turned back to their conversation.
Mara shook her head, trying to remember her original point to Jaina. “That’s why your mother chose to come out now.”
“You’re expecting a fight?” Jaina asked, and neither Leia nor Mara missed the sparkle in her eye.
“The Mediator will keep them behaving,” Leia said hopefully. Indeed, the battle cruiser was an impressive warship, an updated and more heavily armed and armored version of the Mon Calamari star cruiser.
Mara looked back to the screen and shook her head, unconvinced. “It’ll take more than a show of force to stop this catastrophe,” she replied.
“Indeed, it has been escalating, by all reports,” C-3PO piped up. “It started as a simple mining dispute over mineral rights, but now the rhetoric is more appropriate for some kind of a holy crusade.”
“It’s the leader on Rhommamool,” Mara remarked. “Nom Anor. He’s reached down and grabbed his followers by their most basic instincts, weaving the dispute against Osarian into a more general matter of tyranny and oppression. Don’t underestimate him.”
“I can’t begin to give you a full list of tyrants like Nom Anor that I’ve dealt with,” Leia said with a resigned shrug.
“I have that very list available,” C-3PO blurted. “Tonkoss Rathba of—”
“Thank you, Threepio,” Leia said, too politely.
“Why, of course, Princess Leia,” the droid replied. “I do so like to be of service. Now where was I? Oh, yes. Tonkoss Rathba of—”
“Not now, Threepio,” Leia insisted, then to Mara, she added, “I’ve seen his type often.”
“Not like him,” Mara replied, somewhat softly, and the sudden weakness in her voice reminded Leia and Jaina that Mara, despite her nearly constant bravado and overabundance of energy, was seriously ill, with a strange and thankfully rare disease that had killed dozens of others and against which the best doctors in the New Republic had proven completely helpless. Of those who had contracted the molecular disorder, only Mara and one other remained alive, and that other person, being studied intently on Coruscant, was fast dying.
“Daluba,” C-3PO went on. “And of course, there was Icknya—”
Leia started to turn to the droid, hoping to politely but firmly shut him up, but Jaina’s cry stopped her abruptly and swung her back to face the screen.
“Incoming ships!” Jaina announced, her voice full of surprise. The telltale blips had appeared on her sensor viewer as if from nowhere.
“Four of them,” Mara confirmed. Even as she spoke, the warning buzzers began to go off. “From Osarian.” She turned her curious expression up to Leia. “They know who we are?”
Leia nodded. “And they know why I’ve come.”
“Then they should know to leave us alone,” Jaina reasoned.
Leia nodded again, but understood better. She had come to the system not to meet with the Osarians—not at first, at least—but with their principal rival, Nom Anor, the cult figure stirring up trouble on Rhommamool. “Tell them to back off,” she instructed Mara.
“Politely?” Mara asked, smiling, and with that dangerous twinkle in her eyes.
“New Republic shuttle,” a halting voice crackled over the comm. “This is Captain Grappa of Osarian First-Force.”
With a flick of a switch, Mara put an image of the captain on the viewscreen, and Leia sighed as the green skin, spiny head ridge, and tapirlike snout came into view.
“Wonderful,” she remarked sarcastically.
“The Osarians have hired Rodians?” Jaina asked.
“Nothing like a few mercenaries to quiet things down,” Leia replied dryly.
“Oh, dear me,” C-3PO remarked, and he shuffled aside nervously.
“You come with us,” Grappa insisted, his multifaceted eyes sparkling eagerly. “To Osa-Prime.”
“Seems the Osarians want to talk with you first,” Mara said.
“They’re afraid that my meeting with Nom Anor will only heighten his stature, both among the Rhommamoolians and throughout the sector,” Leia reasoned, a notion not without credence, and one that she had debated endlessly before making the decision to come here.
“Whatever the reason, they’re closing fast,” Mara replied. Both she and Jaina looked to Leia for instructions, for while the Jade Sabre was Mara’s ship, this was Leia’s mission.
“Princess Leia?” an obviously alarmed C-3PO asked.
Leia sat down in the chair behind Mara, intently studying the screen, which Jaina had switched back to a normal space view. The four approaching fighters were clearly visible.
“Lose them,” she said determinedly, a request that neither of the pilots needed to hear twice. Indeed, Mara had been eager to put the shuttle, with its powerful twin engines and state-of-the-art maneuvering systems, through a real test.
Green eyes sparkling, smile wide, Mara reached for the controls, but then retracted her hands and put them on her lap. “You heard her, Jaina,” she said.
Jaina’s mouth dropped open; so did Leia’s.
“You mean it?” Jaina asked.
Mara’s only reply was an almost bored expression, along with a slight yawn, as if this whole thing was no big deal, and certainly nothing that Jaina couldn’t easily handle.
“Yes!” Jaina whispered, clenching her fists, wearing a smile nearly wide enough to take in her ears. She rubbed her hands together, then reached out to the right, rolling her fingers over the floating-ball control of the inertial compensator. “Strap in,” she ordered, and she dialed it down to 95 percent, as fighter pilots often did so that they could gain a tactile feel to the movements of their ships. Reading the g’s, Jaina had heard it called, and she always preferred flying that way, where fast turns and mighty acceleration could push her back in her seat.
“Not too much,” Leia said with concern.
But her daughter was in her element now, Leia knew, and she’d push the shuttle to its limits. Leia felt the lean as Jaina veered right, angling away from the approaching ships.
“If you run, we shoot you down!” came the uneven voice of Grappa.
“Z-95 Headhunters,” Mara said derisively of the closing craft, an antiquated starfighter, and she flipped off the comm switch and looked back at Leia. “Can’t shoot what you can’t catch,” she explained. “Kick them in,” she added to Jaina, motioning to the primary thrusters, thinking that a burst of the powerful engines would shoot the Jade Sabre right past the befuddled Rodians and their outdated starfighters.
Even as she spoke, though, two more blips appeared on the sensors, streaking out from the shadows around Rhommamool, angling right in line with the Jade Sabre.
“Mara,” Leia said with concern. At that, Mara did reach for the controls. But only for a moment, and then she looked Jaina right in the eye and nodded for the young woman to proceed.
Leia lurched forward in her seat, held back only by the belt, as Jaina reversed throttle and kicked the etheric rudder right. There came a metallic thump behind them—C-3PO hitting the wall, Leia guessed.
Even as the Jade Sabre came to a sudden halt, nose turned starboard, Jaina pumped it out to full throttle and kicked the rudder back to the left, then hard right, fishtailing the ship about in a brutal one-eighty, then working the rudder hard and somewhat choppy in straightening out her direct retreat. As they turned, a laser cannon blast cut across their bow.
“All right, the first four are on our tail,” Mara instructed calmly. The Jade Sabre jolted, hit aft, a blow the shields easily held back.
“Try a—” Mara started to say, but she lost the words, and nearly her lunch, as Jaina pulled a snap roll right, and then another right behind it.
“Oh, we’ll be killed!” came C-3PO’s cry from the doorway, and Leia managed to turn her head to see the droid leaning in against the metal jamb, and then to see him fly away, with a pitiful cry, as Jaina kicked the etheric rudder again, putting the ship into another sudden fishtail.
A pair of Headhunters streaked past the viewscreen, but just for a split second, for Jaina vectored away at a different angle, and at single-engine full throttle, pressing Leia back in her seat. Leia wanted to say something to Jaina then, some words of encouragement or advice, but found her words stuck in her throat. And not for any g forces.
It was the sight of Jaina, the fire in her brown eyes, the determined set of her jaw, the sheer concentration. At that moment, Leia knew.
Her daughter was a woman now, and with all the grit of her father and mother combined.
Mara glanced over her right shoulder, between Jaina and Leia, and both followed her lead long enough to see that two of the initial four had altered course accordingly and were fast closing, laser cannons blasting away.
“Hold on,” a confident Jaina warned, and she pulled back the stick, lifting the Jade Sabre’s nose, then shoved it forward, dropping the shuttle into a sudden, inverted loop.
“We’re doomed!” C-3PO cried from the hallway—the hallway ceiling, Leia knew.
Halfway around, Jaina broke the loop with a snap roll, then kicked her into a fishtail and a barrel roll, bringing her about to nearly their original course, but with the initial four behind them. Now she did kick in both ion drives, as if to use sheer speed to split the gap between the two incoming fighters.
Both angled out suddenly, then turned back in, widening that escape route but giving them a longer shooting angle at the shuttle, and an easier turn to pursue.
“They’re good,” Mara warned, but, like Leia, she found her words lost in her throat, as Jaina, teeth gritted to fight back the g’s, reversed throttle.
“Princess—” The plaintive cry from the corridor ended abruptly in a loud crash.
“Coming in hot!” Mara cried, noting the fighter fast approaching to port.
Jaina didn’t, couldn’t even hear her; she had turned inward now, was feeling the Force coursing through her, was registering every movement of her enemies and reacting instinctively, playing the game three moves ahead. Before Mara had even begun to speak, Jaina had hit the forward attitude adjustment jets, lifting the nose, then she pumped the throttle and kicked the rudder, lifting the Jade Sabre and bringing her nose about to starboard, to directly face the other incoming Headhunter.
And that eager Rodian did come in at them, and hard, and the Jade Sabre’s defensive array screeched and lit up, warning of a lock-on.
“Jaina!” Leia cried.
“He’s got us!” Mara added.
But then the closer ship, coming from port, passed right under the Jade Sabre, and Jaina fired the repulsorlifts, bouncing the Jade Sabre up and sending the poor Headhunter into a wild, spinning roll.
The closing ship from starboard let fly its concussion missile, but it, and the Headhunter, zipped right underneath the elevated Jade Sabre.
Before the three women could even begin to catch their breath, another ship streaked in, an X-wing, the new XJ version of the starfighter, its own laser cannons blasting away from its wingtips. Not at the Jade Sabre, though, but at the Headhunter that had just gone past.
“Who is that?” Leia asked, and Jaina, equally curious, brought the Jade Sabre about hard.
The Headhunter snap-rolled left and dived, but the far superior X-wing stayed on her, lasers scoring hit after hit, depleting her shields and then blasting her apart into a million pieces.
“A Jedi,” Mara and Jaina said together, and Leia, when she paused to collect the Force sensations about her, concurred.
“Fast to the Mediator,” Leia instructed her daughter, and Jaina swung the Jade Sabre about yet again.
“I didn’t know there were any Jedi in the sector,” Leia said to Mara, who could only shrug, equally at a loss.
“Another one’s out,” Jaina informed them, watching the blips on her sensor screen. “And two others are vectoring away.”
“They want no part of a Jedi showing a willingness to shoot back,” Mara remarked.
“Maybe Rodians are smarter than I thought,” Leia said dryly. “Smooth it out,” she instructed her daughter, unbuckling and climbing unsteadily to her feet.
Jaina reluctantly dialed the inertial compensator back to full.
“Only one pursuing,” Jaina informed them as Leia made her way to the door.
“The X-wing,” Mara added, and Leia nodded.
In the hallway outside the bridge, Leia found C-3PO inverted and against the wall, his feet sticking up in the air, his head crunched forward so that his chin was tight against his chest.
“You have to learn to hold on,” Leia said to him, helping him upright. She glanced across the way to Bolpuhr as she spoke, to find the Noghri still standing calmly in the exact spot she had assigned him.
Somehow, she wasn’t amazed.
Jaina took the Jade Sabre at a swift but steady pace toward the distant Mediator. She checked often for pursuit, but it quickly became obvious that the Rodians in their outdated Headhunters wanted no part of this fight.
Leia rejoined them a short while later, to find Jaina in complete control and Mara resting back in her seat, eyes closed. Even when Jaina asked her aunt a question about docking procedures, the woman didn’t respond, didn’t even open her eyes.
“They’ll guide you in,” Leia interjected, and sure enough, a voice from the Mediator crackled over the opened comm, giving explicit directions for entry vector.
Jaina took her in, and Jaina took her down, easily—and after the display of flying she had just given them out with the Headhunters, Leia wasn’t the least bit surprised by her ability to so smoothly tight-dock a ship as large as the Jade Sabre.
That final shudder as Jaina eased off the repulsorlifts and settled the shuttle onto the docking bay floor stirred Mara from her rest. She opened her eyes and, seeing where they were, rose quickly.
And then she swayed and seemed as if she would fall.
Leia and Jaina were there in an instant, catching and steadying her.
She regained her balance and took a deep breath. “Maybe next time you can dial down the inertial compensator to ninety-seven instead of ninety-five,” she said jokingly, straining a smile.
Jaina laughed, but Leia’s face showed her deep concern. “Are you all right?” she asked. Mara eyed her directly.
“Perhaps we should find a place where you can rest,” Leia said.
“Where we all can rest,” Mara corrected, and her tone told Leia to back off, a reminder that Leia was intruding on a private place for Mara, a place she had explicitly instructed all of her friends, even her husband, not to go. This disease was Mara’s fight alone, to Mara’s thinking, a battle that had forced her to reconsider everything she thought about her life, past, present, and future, and everything she thought about death.
Leia held her stare for a moment longer, but replaced her own concerned expression with one of acceptance. Mara did not want to be coddled or cuddled. She was determined to live on in an existence that did not name her disease as the most pressing and important facet of her entire life, to live on as she had before, with the illness being relegated to the position of nuisance, and nothing more.
Of course, Leia understood it to be much more than that, an internal churning that required Mara to spend hours and tremendous Force energy merely holding it in check. But that was Mara’s business.
“I hope to meet with Nom Anor tomorrow,” Leia explained, as the three, with C-3PO and Bolpuhr in tow, headed for the lower hatch, then moved down to the landing bay. A contingent of New Republic Honor Guard stood waiting there, along with Commander Ackdool, a Mon Calamarian with large, probing eyes, a fishlike face, and salmon-colored skin. “By all reports, we should all be rested before dealing with him.”
“Believe those reports,” Mara said.
“And first, it seems I get to meet with our savior Jedi,” Leia added dryly, looking back behind the Jade Sabre to see the X-wing gliding in to rest.
“Wurth Skidder,” Jaina remarked, recognizing the markings under the canopy on the starfighter.
“Why am I not surprised?” Leia asked, and she blew a sigh.
Ackdool came over to them, then, and extended his formal greetings to the distinguished guests, but Leia’s reaction set him back on his heels—indeed, it raised more than a few eyebrows among the members of the Mediator’s Honor Guard.
“Why did you send him out?” Leia snapped, motioning toward the docking X-wing.
Commander Ackdool started to answer, but Leia continued. “If we had needed assistance, we would have called for it.”
“Of course, Princess Leia,” Commander Ackdool said with a polite bow.
“They why send him out?”
“Why do you assume that Wurth Skidder flew out at my command?” the cool Commander Ackdool dared to respond. “Why would you assume that Wurth Skidder heeds any order I might give?”
“Couple o’ ridge-head parachutes floating over Osarian, if those Rodians had any luck,” came the singsong voice of Wurth Skidder. The cocky young man was fast approaching, pulling off his helmet and giving his shock of blond hair a tousle as he walked.
Leia stepped out to intercept him and took another quick step for no better reason than to make the Jedi stop short. “Wurth Skidder,” she said.
“Princess,” the man replied with a bow.
“Did you have a little fun out there?”
“More than a little,” the Jedi said with a wide grin and a sniffle—and he always seemed to be sniffling, and his hair always looked as if he had just walked in from a Tatooine sand-storm. “Fun for me, I mean, and not for the Rodians.”
“And the cost of your fun?” Leia asked.
That took the smile from Wurth Skidder’s face, and he looked at Leia curiously, obviously not understanding.
“The cost,” Leia explained. “What did your little excursion cost?”
“A couple of proton torpedos,” Wurth replied with a shrug. “A little fuel.”
“And a year of diplomatic missions to calm down the Osarians,” Leia retorted.
“But they shot first,” Wurth protested.
“Do you even understand that your stupidity likely escalated an already impossible situation?” Leia’s voice was as firm and cold as anyone present had ever heard it. So cold, in fact, that the always overprotective Bolpuhr, fearing trouble, glided closer to her, hanging back just behind her left shoulder, within fast striking distance of the Jedi.
“They were attacking you,” Wurth Skidder retorted. “Six of them!”
“They were trying to bring us down to Osarian,” Leia harshly explained. “A not-so-unexpected response, given my announced intentions here. And so we planned to avoid them. Avoid! Do you understand that word?”
Wurth Skidder said nothing.
“Avoid them and thus cause no further problems or hard feelings,” Leia went on. “And so we would have, and we would have asked for no explanations from Shunta Osarian Dharrg, all of us pretending that nothing had ever happened.”
“But—”
“And our graciousness in not mentioning this unfortunate incident would have bought me the bargaining capital I need to bring some kind of conciliation from Osarian toward Rhommamool,” Leia continued, anger creeping in thicker with each word. “But now we can’t do that, can we? Now, so that Wurth Skidder could paint another skull on the side of his X-wing, I’ll have to deal with an incident.”
“They shot first,” Wurth Skidder reiterated when it became apparent that Leia was done.
“And better that they had shot last,” Leia replied. “And if Shunta Osarian Dharrg demands reparations, we’ll agree, with all apologies, and any monies to be paid will come from Wurth Skidder’s private funds.”
The Jedi squared his shoulders at the suggestion, but then Leia hit him with a sudden and devastating shot. “My brother will see to it.”
Wurth Skidder bowed again, glared at Leia and all around, then turned on his heel and walked briskly away.
“My apologies, Princess Leia,” Ackdool said. “But I have no real authority over Jedi Skidder. I had thought it a blessing when he arrived two weeks ago. His Jedi skills should certainly come in handy against any terrorist attempts—and we have heard rumors of many—against the Mediator.”
“And you are indeed within striking distance of surface missiles,” C-3PO added, but he stopped short, this time catching on to the many disapproving looks that came his way.
“I did not know that Jedi Skidder would prove so …” Ackdool paused, searching for the right word. “Intractable.”
“Stubborn, you mean,” Leia said. As they all started away, Leia did manage a bit of a smile when she heard Mara behind her tell Jaina, “Maybe Nom Anor has met his match.”
C-9PO, a protocol droid, its copper coloring tinged red from the constantly blowing dusts of Rhommamool, skittered down an alley to the side of the main avenue of Redhaven and peeked out cautiously at the tumult beyond. The fanatical followers of Nom Anor, the Red Knights of Life, had gone on the rampage again, riding throughout the city in an apparent purge of landspeeders on their tutakans, eight-legged lizards with enormous tusks that climbed right up past their black eyes and curled in like white eyebrows.
“Ride the beasts given by Life!” one Red Knight screamed at a poor civilian as the wrinkled Dressellian merchant was dragged from the cockpit and punched and pushed to the ground.
“Perversion!” several other Red Knights cried in unison. “Life-pretender!” And they set upon the landspeeder with their tubal-iron pummelstaves, smashing the windshield, bashing in the side moldings, crushing the steering wheel and other controls, even knocking one of the rear drive’s cylindrical engines from its mounts.
Satisfied that the craft was wrecked beyond repair, they pulled the Dressellian to his feet and shoved him to and fro, warning him to ride creatures, not machines—or, better still, to use the legs that nature had provided and walk. Then they beat him back down to the ground and moved on, some climbing back atop the tutakans, others running beside.
The landspeeder continued to hover, though it had only a couple of repulsors still firing. It looked more like a twisted lump of beaten metal than a vehicle, tilting to one side because of the unequal weight distribution and the weakened lift capacity.
“Oh, dear me,” the protocol droid said, ducking low as the contingent stormed past.
Tap, tap, tap came the ringing of metal on metal against the top of the droid’s head. C-9PO slowly turned about and saw the fringe of the telltale black capes, and the red-dyed hides.
With a screech, the droid stood up and tried to run away, but a pummelstave smashed in the side of his leg and he went facedown in the red dust. He lifted his head, but rising up on his arms only gave the two Red Knights a better handhold as they walked past, each scooping the droid under one shoulder and dragging him along.
“Got a Ninepio,” one of the pair called out to his lizard-riding buddies, and a cheer went up.
The doomed droid knew the destination: the Square of Hopeful Redemption.
C-9PO was glad that he wasn’t programmed to experience pain.
* * *
“It was a stupid thing to do,” Leia said firmly.
“Wurth thought he was helping us,” Jaina reminded, but Leia wasn’t buying that argument.
“Wurth was trying to find his own thrills,” she corrected.
“And that hotshot attitude of his will reinforce the ring of truth to Nom Anor’s diatribes against the Jedi,” Mara said. “He’s not without followers on Osarian.” As she finished, she looked down at the table, at the pile of leaflets Commander Ackdool had given them, colorful propaganda railing against the New Republic, against the Jedi, and against anything mechanical and technological, and somehow tying all of these supposed ills to the cultural disease that engulfed the society of the planet Osarian.
“Why does Nom Anor hate the Jedi?” Jaina asked. “What do we have to do with the struggle between Osarian and Rhommamool? I never even heard of these planets until you mentioned that we’d be coming here.”
“The Jedi have nothing to do with this struggle,” Leia replied. “Or at least, they didn’t until Wurth Skidder’s antics.”
“Nom Anor hates the New Republic,” Mara added. “And he hates the Jedi as symbols of the New Republic.”
“Is there anything Nom Anor doesn’t hate?” Leia asked dryly.
“Don’t take him lightly,” Mara warned yet again. “His religious cry to abandon technology and machines, to look for truth in the natural elements and life of the universe, and to resist the joining of planets in false confederations resonates deeply in many people, particularly those who have been the victims of such planetary alliances, like the miners of Rhommamool.”
Leia didn’t disagree. She had spent many hours before and during the journey here reading the history of the two planets, and she knew that the situation on Rhommamool was much more complicated than that. While many of the miners had traveled to the inhospitable red planet voluntarily, there were quite a number who were the descendants of the original “colonists”—involuntary immigrants sent there to work the mines because of high crimes they had committed.
Whatever the truth of the situation, though, Leia couldn’t deny that Rhommamool was the perfect breeding ground for zealots like Nom Anor. Life there was tough—even basics like water could be hard to come by—while the prosperous Osarians lived in comfort on white sandy beaches and crystal-clear lakes.
“I still don’t understand how any of that concerns the Jedi,” Jaina remarked.
“Nom Anor was stirring up anger against the Jedi long before he ever came to Rhommamool,” Mara explained. “Here, he’s just found a convenient receptacle for his wrath.”
“And with the Jedi Knights scattered throughout the galaxy, and so many of them following their own agendas, Nom Anor might just find plenty of ammunition to add to his arguments,” Leia added grimly. “I’m glad that my brother is thinking of reestablishing the Jedi Council.”
Mara nodded, but Jaina seemed less convinced. “Jacen doesn’t think that’s such a good idea,” she reminded her mother.
Leia shrugged. Her oldest son, Jaina’s twin, had indeed expressed serious doubts about the course of the Jedi Knights.
“If we can’t bring some sense of order to the galaxy, particularly to isolated planets like Osarian and Rhommamool, then we’re no better than the Empire,” Mara remarked.
“We’re better than the Empire,” Leia insisted.
“Not in Nom Anor’s eyes,” Jaina said.
And Mara reiterated her warning to Leia not to take the man lightly. “He’s the strangest man I ever met,” she explained, and given her past exploits with notorious sorts like Jabba the Hutt and Talon Karrde, that was quite a statement. “Even when I tried to use the Force to gain a better perspective on him, I drew …” Mara paused, as if looking for some way to properly express the feeling. “A blank,” she decided. “As if the Force had nothing to do with him.”
Leia and Jaina looked at her curiously.
“No,” Mara corrected. “More like he had nothing to do with the Force.”
The perfect disconnected ideologue, Leia thought, and she expressed her feelings with a single sarcastic word: “Wonderful.”
He stood on the platform surrounded by his fanatical Red Knights. Before him, ten thousand Rhommamoolians crowded into every open space of the great public square of Redhaven, once the primary trading spaceport of the planet. But those facilities had been leveled in the early days of the uprising, with the Rhommamoolians declaring their independence from Osarian. And more recently, since the coming of Nom Anor as spearhead of the revolution, the place had been renamed the Square of Hopeful Redemption.
Here, the citizens came to declare freedom from Osarian.
Here, the followers came to renounce the New Republic.
Here, the believers came to renounce the Jedi.
And here, the fanatics came to discredit progress and technology, to cry out for a simpler time, when the strength of a being’s legs, and not the weight of his purse, determined how far he could travel, and the strength of his hands, and not the weight of his purse, allowed him to harvest the gifts of nature.
Nom Anor loved it all, the adulation and the fanatical, bordering on suicidal, devotion. He cared nothing for Rhommamool or its inhabitants, cared nothing for the foolish cries for some ridiculous “simpler time.”
But how he loved the chaos his words and followers inflicted upon the order of the galaxy. How he loved the brooding undercurrent of resentment toward the New Republic, and the simmering anger aimed at the Jedi Knights, these supercreatures of the galaxy.
Wouldn’t his superiors be pleased?
Nom Anor flipped his shiny black cape back from his shoulder and held his fist upraised into the air, drawing shrieks of appreciation. In the center of the square, where once had stood the Portmaster’s Pavilion, now was a huge pit, thirty meters in diameter and ten deep. Whistles and whines emanated from that pit, along with cries for mercy and pitifully polite words of protest—the voices of droids collected by the folk of Rhommamool and dropped into the hole.
Great cheers erupted from all corners of the square as a pair of the Red Knights entered from one avenue, dragging a 9PO protocol droid between them. They went to the edge of the pit, took up the poor 9PO by the arms and the legs, and on a three-count, launched him onto the pile of metal consisting of the astromech and mine-sniffer droids, the Redhaven street-cleaner droids, and the personal butler droids of the wealthier Rhommamoolian citizens.
When the hooting and cheering died down, Nom Anor opened his hands, revealing a single small stone. Then he clenched his fist again, squeezing with tremendous power, crushing the stone in his grasp so that dust and flecks of rock splinters slipped out the sides.
The signal to begin.
As one the crowd surged forward, lifting great chunks of stone, the debris from the wreckage of the pavilion. They came to the edge of the pit one after another and hurled their heavy missiles at the pile of droids.
The stoning went on for the rest of the afternoon, until the red glare of the sun thinned to a brilliant crimson line along the horizon, until the dozens and dozens of droids were no more than scrap metal and sparking wires.
And Nom Anor, silent and dignified, watched it all somberly, accepting this great tribute his followers had paid to him, this public execution of the hated droids.
LEGACY ERA
(40+ YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
The Yuuzhan Vong have been defeated, but the galaxy has been slow to recover from their depredations, with powerful worlds chafing at the economic burdens and military restrictions put upon them by the nascent Galactic Alliance, once-powerful species seeking to rise again, newly prosperous worlds testing their influence, and long-buried secrets coming to light. The result of all this instability is civil war. Faced with a Galactic Alliance that has fallen away from its values, Luke and the Jedi Order must decide where their loyalties lie—and so, too, must the heroes of the Rebellion.
While hostilities spread across the Core Worlds, lurking in the shadows is a Sith adept who wastes no time in taking advantage of the galactic chaos to wage a very personal war against the Skywalkers and the Solos. Luke will face terrible loss, Han and Leia will be tested as never before, and their daughter, Jaina, will learn just what it means to fulfill her destiny as “the Sword of the Jedi.” And even as the Galactic Alliance pulls the galaxy back from the brink of total disaster, the Skywalker–Solo clan will never be the same again.
The mop-up is difficult. Luke Skywalker is exiled from Coruscant, and while he and his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, set out on a quest to discover what caused such darkness to befall the galaxy and their family, Han and Leia are left to raise their granddaughter, Allana, and help shepherd the government back into some semblance of order. But little do any of them know that a long-lost tribe of Sith is making its way toward the Core, determined to fulfill their destiny of dominance over the galaxy … and that both Sith and Jedi are about to run headlong into a terrifying creature of untold Force abilities and an insatiable appetite for power …
If you’re a reader new to the Legacy era, here are four great starting points:
• Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston: The first in the nine-book Legacy of the Force series, setting the stage for galactic civil war and a fall to darkness.
• Millennium Falcon, by James Luceno: Han Solo’s famous freighter becomes a character in her own right as Han, Leia, their granddaughter Allana, and the droid C-3PO set out on an adventure that brings to light the ship’s colorful, mysterious past.
• Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp: A remnant of the Old Republic comes into Luke Skywalker’s time in a tale of insane clones and time-traveling Jedi and Sith.
• Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston: The nine-book Fate of the Jedi series blasts off with the new adventures of Luke and Ben Skywalker—Jedi Master and apprentice, father and son—in search of answers to a terrifying question.
Read on for excerpts from Star Wars novels set in the Legacy era.
chapter one
CORUSCANT
“He doesn’t exist.” With those words, spoken without any conscious thought or effort on his part, Luke Skywalker sat upright in bed and looked around at the dimly illuminated chamber.
There wasn’t much to see. Members of the Jedi order, even Masters such as Luke, didn’t accumulate much personal property. Within view were chairs situated in front of unlit computer screens; a wall rack holding plasteel staves and other practice weapons; a table littered with personal effects such as datapads, notes scrawled on scraps of flimsi, datachips holding reports from various Jedi Masters, and a crude and not at all accurate sandglass statuette in Luke’s image sent to him by a child from Tatooine. Inset into the stone-veneer walls were drawers holding his and Mara’s limited selection of clothes. Their lightsabers were behind Luke, resting on a shelf on the headboard of their bed.
His wife, Mara Jade Skywalker, had more personal items and equipment, of course. Disguises, weapons, communications gear, falsified documents. A former spy, she had never given up the trappings of that trade, but those items weren’t here. Luke wasn’t sure where she kept them. She didn’t bother him with such details.
Beside him, she stirred, and he glanced down at her. Her red hair, kept a medium length this season, was an unruly mess, but there was no sleepiness in her eyes when they opened. In brighter light, he knew, those eyes were an amazing green. “Who doesn’t exist?” she asked.
“I don’t know. An enemy.”
“You dreamed about him?”
He nodded. “I’ve had the dream a couple of times before. It’s not just a dream. It’s coming to me through currents in the Force. He’s all wrapped up in shadows—a dark hooded cloak, but more than that, shadows of light and …” Luke shook his head, struggling for the correct word. “And ignorance. And denial. And he brings great pain to the galaxy … and to me.”
“Well, if he brings pain to the galaxy, you’re obviously going to feel it.”
“No, to me personally, in addition to his other evil.” Luke sighed and lay down again. “It’s too vague. And when I’m awake, when I try to peer into the future to find him, I can’t.”
“Because he doesn’t exist.”
“That’s what the dream tells me.” Luke hissed in aggravation.
“Could it be Raynar?”
Luke considered. Raynar Thul, former Jedi Knight, presumed dead during the Yuuzhan Vong war, had been discovered a few years earlier—horribly burned during the war, mentally transformed in the years since through his involvement with the insectoid Killik race. That transformation had been a malevolent one, and the Jedi order had had to deal with him. Now he languished in a well-protected cell deep within the Jedi Temple, undergoing treatment for his mental and physical afflictions.
Treatment. Treatment meant change; perhaps, in changing, Raynar was becoming something new, and Luke’s presentment pointed toward the being Raynar would someday become.
Luke shook his head and pushed the possibility away. “In this vision, I don’t sense Raynar’s alienness. Mentally, emotionally, whoever it is remains human, or near human. There’s even the possiblity that it’s my father.”
“Darth Vader.”
“No. Before he was Darth Vader. Or just when he was becoming Vader.” Luke’s gaze lost focus as he tried to recapture the dream. “What little of his face I can see reminds me of the features of Anakin Skywalker as a Jedi. But his eyes … as I watch, they turn a molten gold or orange, transforming from Force-use and anger …”
“I have an idea.”
“Tell me.”
“Let’s wait until he shows up, then crush him.”
Luke smiled. “All right.” He closed his eyes and his breathing slowed, an effort to return to sleep.
Within a minute the rhythm of his breathing became that of natural sleep.
But Mara lay awake, her attention on the ceiling—beyond it, through dozens of floor levels of the Jedi enclave to the skies of Coruscant above—and searched for any hint, any flicker of what it was that was causing her husband worry.
She found no sign of it. And she, too, slept.
ADUMAR
The gleaming pearl-gray turbolift doors slid open sideways, and warm air bearing an aroma that advertised death and destruction washed over Jacen Solo, his cousin Ben Skywalker, and their guide.
Jacen took a deep breath and held it. The odors of this subterranean factory were not the smells of corrupted flesh or gangrenous wounds—smells Jacen was familiar with—but those of labor and industry. The great chamber before them had been a missile manufacturing center for decades, and no amount of rigorous cleaning would ever be quite able to eliminate the odors of sweat, machine lubricant, newly fabricated composite materials, solid fuel propellants, and high explosives that filled the air.
Jacen expelled the breath and stepped out of the turbolift, then walked the handful of steps up to the rail overlooking the chamber. He walked rapidly so that his Jedi cloak would billow a little as he strode, so that his boot heels would ring on the metal flooring of this observation catwalk, and so his apprentice and guide would be left behind for a moment. This was a performance for his guide and all the other representatives of the Dammant Killers company. Jacen knew he was carrying off his role quite well; the company officials he’d been dealing with remained properly intimidated. But he didn’t know whether to attribute his success to his bearing and manner, his lean, brooding, and handsome looks, or his name—for on this world of Adumar, with its history of fascination with pilots, the name of Jacen’s father, Han Solo, went a very long way.
His guide, a slender, balding man named Testan ke Harran, moved up to the rail to Jacen’s right. Contrasting with the dull grays and blues that were common on this factory’s walls and its workers’ uniforms, Testan was a riot of color—his tunic, with its nearly knee-length hem and its flowing sleeves, was the precise orange of X-wing fighter pilot uniforms, though decorated with purple crisscross lines breaking it down into a flickering expanse of small diamond shapes, and his trousers, belt, and scarf were a gleaming gold.
Testan stroked his lustrous black beard, the gesture a failed attempt to conceal the man’s nervousness. Jacen felt, rather than saw, Ben move up on the other side of Testan.
“You can see,” Testan said, “ar workars enjoy very fan conditions.”
Ben cleared his throat. “He says their workers enjoy very fine conditions.”
Jacen nodded absently. He understood Testan’s words, and it had taken him little time to learn and understand the Adumari accent, but this was another act, a ploy to keep the Adumari off-balance. He leaned forward to give the manufacturing floor below his full attention.
The room was large enough to act as a hangar and maintenance bay for four full squadrons of X-wing snubfighters. Tall duracrete partitions divided the space into eight lanes, each of which enclosed an assembly line; materials entered through small portals in the wall to the left, rolled along on luminous white conveyor belts, and eventually exited through portals on the far right. Laborers in gray jumpsuits flanked the belts and worked on the materials as they passed.
On the nearest belt, immediately below Jacen, the materials being worked on appeared to be compact visual sensor assemblies. The conveyor belt brought in eight such units and stopped. Moving quickly, the laborers plugged small cables into the units and turned to look into monitors, which showed black-and-white images of jumpsuited waists and worker hands. The workers turned the units this way and that, confirming that the sensors were properly calibrated.
One monitor never lit up with a view from the sensor. The worker on that unit unplugged it and set it on a table running parallel to the conveyor belt. A moment later, the other workers on this section unplugged their sensor units and the conveyor belt jerked into motion again, carrying the remaining seven units to the next station.
One lane over, the conveyor belt remained in constant motion, carrying sensor unit housings along. The workers on that belt, fewer in number than the sensor testers, reached out occasionally to turn a housing, to look inside, to examine the exterior for cracks or warping. Some workers, distributed at intervals along the line, rapped each housing with a small rubber-headed hammer. Jacen assumed they were listening for a musical tone he could not possibly hear at this distance over the roar of noise from the floor.
Another lane away from him, the workers were clad not in jumpsuits but in full-coverage hazardous materials suits of a lighter and more reflective gray than the usual worker outfit. Their conveyor belt carried white plates bearing irregular balls the size of a human head but a nearly luminous green. The belt stopped as each set of eight such balls entered the lane, giving the workers time to plunge needlelike sensors into each ball. They, too, checked monitors for a few seconds before withdrawing the needles to allow the balls to continue on. Jacen knew that poisonous green—it was the color of the high explosive Adumari manufacturers used to fabricate the concussion missiles they exported.
While Jacen made his initial survey, Ben kept their guide occupied. “Do you wax your beard?” he asked.
“I do not.”
“It just seems very shiny. Do you oil it?”
Testan’s voice was a little more irritated in tone. “I do not oil it. I condition it. And I brush it.”
“Do you brush it with butter?”
Jacen finally looked to the right, past Testan and at his cousin. Ben was thirteen standard years of age, not tall but well muscled, with a fine-featured freckled face under a mass of flame-red hair. Ben turned, his face impassive, to look at Jacen, then said, “The Jedi Knight acknowledges that this factory seems to meet the minimum, the absolute minimum, required safety and comfort standards of a Galactic Alliance military contractor.”
Jacen nodded. The nod meant Good improvisation. He was exerting no Force skill to communicate words to Ben; Ben’s role was to pretend to act as his mentor’s translator, when his actual function was to convince the locals that adult Jedi were even more aloof and mysterious than they had thought.
“No, no, no.” Testan drew a sleeve over his brow, dabbing away a little perspiration. “We are wall above minimam standards. Those duracrete barriars? They will vent any explosive farce upward, saving the majority of workars in case of calamity. Workar shifts are only two-fifths the day in length, unlike the old days.”
Ben repeated Testan’s words, and Jacen shrugged.
Ben imitated his motion. The gesture caused his own Jedi robe to gape open, revealing the lightsaber hanging from his belt.
Testan glanced at it, then looked back at Jacen, clearly worried. “Your apprentice—” Unsure, he looked to Ben again. “You are very young, are you not, to be wearing such a weapon?”
Ben gave him a blank look. “It’s a practice lightsaber.”
“Ah.” Testan nodded as though he understood.
And there it was. Perhaps it was just the thought of a thirteen-year-old with a deadly cutting implement at hand, but Testan’s defenses slipped enough that the worry began to pour through.
It was like the game in which children are told, “For the next hour, do not think about banthas.” Try as they might, they would, within minutes or even seconds, think about a bantha.
Testan’s control finally gave way and he thought about the banthas—or, rather, a place he wasn’t supposed to go, even to think about. Jacen could feel Testan try to clamp down on the thought. Something in the increased potency of that worry told Jacen that they must be nearer to the source of his concern than during previous parts of their factory tour.
When Testan turned back, Jacen looked directly at him and said, “There is something here. Something wrong.” They were the first words he’d spoken in Testan’s presence.
Testan shook his head. “No. Evrything is fan.”
Jacen looked past him, toward the wall to the far right of the chamber. It was gray and regular, a series of metal panels each the height of a man and twice as wide stacked like bricks. He began a slow, deliberate scrutiny, traversing right to left. His gaze swept the walls, the assembly lines, the elevated observation chamber directly opposite the turbolifts by which they had entered, and continued along the wall to the left.
As his attention reached the middle of the left wall, along the observation balcony, he felt another pulse of worry from Testan. Ben cleared his throat, a signal; the boy, though nowhere near as sensitive in the Force as Jacen, had gotten the same feeling.
Jacen set off along the balcony in that direction. This time the ringing of his boots and billowing of his cloak were a side effect of his speed rather than an act.
“You wish to see the observation chambar?” Testan hurried to keep up. His anxiety was growing, and there was something within it, like a shiny stone at the bottom of a murky pond.
Jacen reached into that pond to draw out the prize within.
It was a memory of a door. It was broad and gray, closing from above as men and women—in dark blue jumpsuits, the outfits of supervisors in this facility—scurried out ahead of its closing. When it settled in place, it was identical to the wall panels Jacen saw ahead of him in the here and now.
Jacen glanced over his shoulder at Testan. “Your thoughts betray you.”
Testan paled. “No, there is nothing to betray.”
Jacen rounded the observation balcony corner, took a few more steps, and skidded to a halt in front of one of the wall sections.
It was here. He knew because he could feel something beyond.
Conflict. He himself was there, fighting. So was Ben. It was a faint glimpse of the future, and he and his apprentice would be in peril beyond.
He jerked his head toward the wall.
Ben brought out his lightsaber and switched it on. With a snap-hiss sound, its blue blade of coherent energy extended to full length.
Ben plunged the blade into the wall panel and began to drag it around in a large circle.
Testan, his voice pained, said, “He told us it was a practice weapon.”
Jacen gave him an innocent look. “It’s true from a certain point of view. He does practice with it.” In his nervousness, Testan didn’t seem to notice that Jacen was understanding him clearly now.
Ben completed his circle and gave the meter-and-a-half-high section he’d outlined a little kick. It fell away into a well-lit chamber, clanging on the floor beyond; the edges still glowed with the heat the lightsaber had poured into them.
Ben stepped through. Jacen ducked to follow. He heard Testan muttering—doubtless an alert into a comlink. Jacen didn’t bother to interfere. They’d just been within clear sight of hundreds of workers and the observation chamber. Dealing with Testan wouldn’t keep the alarm from being broadcast.
The room beyond Ben’s improvised doorway was actually a corridor, four meters wide and eight high, every surface made up of the same dull gray metal rectangles found in the outer chamber, greenish white light pouring from the luminous ceiling. To the left, the corridor ended after a few meters, and that end was heavily packed with tall plasteel transport containers. They were marked DANGER, DO NOT DROP, and DAMMANT KILLER MODEL 16, QUANTITY 24.
To the right, the corridor extended another forty meters and then opened up; the rail and drop-off at the end suggested that it opened onto another observation balcony above another fabrication chamber.
Now making the turn from the balcony into the corridor and running toward them were half a dozen troops armed with blaster rifles. Their orange jumpsuits were reminiscent of X-wing pilot uniforms, but the green carapace armor over their lower legs, torsos, lower arms, and heads was more like stormtrooper speeder bike armor painted the wrong color.
And then behind the first six troops came another six, and then another eight …
Jacen brought his lightsaber out and snapped it into life; the incandescent green of his blade was reflected as highlights against the walls and the armor of the oncoming troops. “Stay behind me,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Ben’s sigh was audible, and Jacen grinned.
The foremost trooper, who bore gold bars on his helmet and wrists, shouted, his voice mechanically amplified: “Stop whar you are! This saction is restricted!”
Jacen moved forward at a walk. He rotated his wrist, moving his lightsaber blade around in front of him in a pattern vaguely reminiscent of butterfly wings. He shouted back, “Could you speak up? I’m a little deaf.”
Ben snickered. “Good one.”
“You may not entar this saction!”
They were now twenty meters from the ranks of troopers ahead.
Jacen continued twirling his blade in a practice form. “Fewer people will be hurt if you just get out of my way.” It was a sort of ritual thing to say. Massed enemy forces almost never backed down, despite the reputation of the Jedi—a reputation that became more widespread, more supernatural, with each year the Jedi prospered under Luke Skywalker’s leadership.
The phrase was ritual in another way, too. Once upon a time, Jacen would have felt tragedy surround him when his actions resulted in the deaths of common soldiers, common guards. But over time he’d lost that sense. There was a wearying inevitability to leaders sending their troops to die against more powerful enemies. It had been happening as long as there were violent leaders and obedient followers. In death, these people became one with the Force, and when Jacen had accepted that fact, his sense of tragedy had largely evaporated.
He took another two steps and the trooper commander called, “Fire!”
The troopers began firing. Jacen gave himself over to the Force, to his awareness of his surroundings, to his sudden oneness with the men and women trying to kill him.
He simply ignored most of the blaster bolts. When he felt them angling in toward him, he twirled his lightsaber blade in line and batted them away, usually back toward the crowd of troopers. In the first few seconds of their assault, four troopers fell to blasts launched by their friends. The smell of burned flesh began to fill the corridor.
Jacen felt danger from behind; felt Ben react to it. Jacen didn’t shift his attention; he continued his march forward. He’d prefer to be able to protect the inexperienced youth, but the boy was good at blaster defense practice. Hard as it was to trust a Jedi whose skills were just developing, he had to. To teach, to learn, he had to trust.
Jacen intercepted the next blaster shot that came his way and batted it toward the trooper commander. It struck the man in the helmet and caromed off, burning out against the ceiling; a portion four meters square of the ceiling’s illumination winked out, darkening the corridor. The commander fell. The shot was probably not fatal—protected by his helmet, the man would have forehead and scalp burns, probably a concussion, but he was unlikely to die.
The strategy had its desired effect. The troopers saw their commander fall. They continued firing but also exchanged looks. Jacen never broke pace, and a trooper with silver stripes on his helmet called “Back, back.” In good order, the troopers began a withdrawal.
Behind him, Jacen heard more blasterfire and the distinctive zap of a lightsaber blade intercepting it, deflecting it. Within the flow of the Force, Jacen felt a shot coming in toward his back, felt it being slapped aside, saw and felt it as it hit the wall to his right. The heat from the shot warmed his right shoulder.
But the defenders continued their retreat, and soon the last of them was around the corner. Jacen’s path to the railing was clear. He strode up to it.
Over the rail, a dozen meters down, was another assembly-line pit, where line after line of munitions components was being assembled—though at the moment all the lines were stopped, their anonymous jumpsuited workers staring up at Jacen.
Jacen’s movement out of the corridor brought him within sight of the orange-and-green defenders, who were now arrayed in disciplined rows along the walkway to Jacen’s left. As soon as he reached the railing they opened fire again. Their tighter formation allowed them to concentrate their fire, and Jacen found himself deflecting more shots than before.
He felt rather than saw Ben scoot into position behind him, but no blaster bolts came at him from that direction. “What now?” Ben asked.
“Finish the mission.” Jacen caught a too-close bolt on his blade near the hilt; unable to aim the deflection, he saw the bolt flash down into the assembly area. It hit a monitor screen. The men and women near the screen dived for cover. Jacen winced; a fraction of a degree of arc difference and that bolt could have hit an explosives package. As inured as he was to causing death, he didn’t want to cause it by accident.
“But you’re in charge—”
“I’m busy.” Jacen took a step forward to give himself more maneuvering and swinging space and concentrated on his attackers. He needed to protect himself and Ben now, to defend a broader area. He focused on batting bolt after bolt back into the ranks of the attackers, saw one, two, three of the soldiers fall.
There was a lull in the barrage of fire. Jacen took a moment to glance over his shoulder. Ben stood at the railing, staring down into the manufacturing line, and to his eye he held a small but expensive holocam unit—the sort carried by wealthy vacationers and holocam hobbyists all over the galaxy.
As Jacen returned his attention to the soldiers, Ben began talking: “Um, this is Ben Skywalker. Jedi Knight Jacen Solo and I are in a, I don’t know, secret part of the Dammant Killers plant under the city of Cartann on the planet Adumar. You’re looking at a missile manufacturing line. It’s making missiles that are not being reported to the GA. They’re selling to planets that aren’t supposed to be getting them. Dammant is breaking the rules. Oh, and the noise you’re hearing? Their guys are trying to kill us.”
Jacen felt Ben’s motion as the boy swung to record the blaster-versus-lightsaber conflict.
“Is that enough?” Ben asked.
Jacen shook his head. “Get the whole chamber. And while you’re doing it, figure out what we’re supposed to do next.”
“I was kind of thinking we ought to get out of here.”
With the tip of his lightsaber blade, Jacen caught a blast that was crackling in toward his right shin. He popped the blast back toward its firer. It hit the woman’s blaster rifle, searing it into an unrecognizable lump, causing her green shoulder armor momentarily to catch fire. She retreated, one of her fellow soldiers patting out her flames. Now there were fewer than fifteen soldiers standing against the Jedi, and their temporary commander was obviously rethinking his make-a-stand orders.
“Good. How?”
“Well, the way we came in—no. They’d be waiting for us.”
“Correct.”
“And you never want to fight the enemy on ground he’s chosen if you can avoid it.”
Jacen grinned. Ben’s words, so adult, were a quote from Han Solo, a man whose wisdom was often questionable—except on matters of personal survival. “Also correct.”
“So … the ends of those assembly lines?”
“Good. So go.”
Jacen heard the scrape of a heel as Ben vaulted over the rail. Not waiting, Jacen leapt laterally, clearing the rail by half a meter, and spun as he fell. Ahead of and below him, Ben was just landing in a crouch on the nearest assembly line, which was loaded with opalescent shell casings. As Jacen landed, bent knees and a little upward push from the Force easing the impact, Ben raced forward, reflexively swatting aside the grasping hand of a too-bold line worker, and crouched as he lunged through the diminutive portal at the end of the line.
Jacen followed. He heard and felt the heat of blaster bolts hitting the assembly line behind him. He swung his lightsaber back over his shoulder, intercepting one bolt, taking the full force of the impact rather than deflecting the bolt into a neighboring line.
No line workers tried to grab him, and in seconds he was squeezing through the portal.
Chapter One
GALACTIC ALLIANCE DIPLOMATIC SHUTTLE, HIGH CORUSCANT ORBIT
ONE BY ONE, THE STARS OVERHEAD BEGAN TO DISAPPEAR, swallowed by some enormous darkness interposing itself from above and behind the shuttle. Sharply pointed at its most forward position, broadening behind, the flood of blackness advanced, blotting out more and more of the unblinking starfield, until darkness was all there was to see.
Then, all across the length and breadth of the ominous shape, lights came on—blue and white running lights, tiny red hatch and security lights, sudden glows from within transparisteel viewports, one large rectangular whiteness limned by atmosphere shields. The lights showed the vast triangle to be the underside of an Imperial Star Destroyer, painted black, forbidding a moment ago, now comparatively cheerful in its proper running configuration. It was the Gilad Pellaeon, newly arrived from the Imperial Remnant, and its officers clearly knew how to put on a show.
Jaina Solo, sitting with the others in the dimly lit passenger compartment of the government VIP shuttle, watched the entire display through the overhead transparisteel canopy and laughed out loud.
The Bothan in the sumptuously padded chair next to hers gave her a curious look. His mottled red and tan fur twitched, either from suppressed irritation or embarrassment at Jaina’s outburst. “What do you find so amusing?”
“Oh, both the obviousness of it and the skill with which it was performed. It’s so very, You used to think of us as dark and scary, but now we’re just your stylish allies.” Jaina lowered her voice so that her next comment would not carry to the passengers in the seats behind. “The press will love it. That image will play on the holonews broadcasts constantly. Mark my words.”
“Was that little show a Jagged Fel detail?”
Jaina tilted her head, considering. “I don’t know. He could have come up with it, but he usually doesn’t spend his time planning displays or events. When he does, though, they’re usually pretty … effective.”
The shuttle rose toward the Gilad Pellaeon’s main landing bay. In moments, it was through the square atmosphere barrier shield and drifting sideways to land on the deck nearby. The landing place was clearly marked—hundreds of beings, most wearing gray Imperial uniforms or the distinctive white armor of the Imperial stormtrooper, waited in the bay, and the one circular spot where none stood was just the right size for the Galactic Alliance shuttle.
The passengers rose as the shuttle settled into place. The Bothan smoothed his tunic, a cheerful blue decorated with a golden sliver pattern suggesting claws. “Time to go to work. You won’t let me get killed, will you?”
Jaina let her eyes widen. “Is that what I was supposed to be doing here?” she asked in droll tones. “I should have brought my lightsaber.”
The Bothan offered a long-suffering sigh and turned toward the exit.
They descended the shuttle’s boarding ramp. With no duties required of her other than to keep alert and be the Jedi face at this preliminary meeting, Jaina was able to stand back and observe. She was struck with the unreality of it all. The niece and daughter of three of the most famous enemies of the Empire during the First Galactic Civil War of a few decades earlier, she was now witness to events that might bring the Galactic Empire—or Imperial Remnant, as it was called everywhere outside its own borders—into the Galactic Alliance on a lasting basis.
And at the center of the plan was the man, flanked by Imperial officers, who now approached the Bothan. Slightly under average size, though towering well above Jaina’s diminutive height, he was dark-haired, with a trim beard and mustache that gave him a rakish look, and was handsome in a way that became more pronounced when he glowered. A scar on his forehead ran up into his hairline and seemed to continue as a lock of white hair from that point. He wore expensive but subdued black civilian garments, neck-to-toe, that would be inconspicuous anywhere on Coruscant but stood out in sharp relief to the gray and white uniforms, white armor, and colorful Alliance clothes surrounding him.
He had one moment to glance at Jaina. The look probably appeared neutral to onlookers, but for her it carried just a twinkle of humor, a touch of exasperation that the two of them had to put up with all these delays. Then an Alliance functionary, notable for his blandness, made introductions: “Imperial Head of State the most honorable Jagged Fel, may I present Senator Tiurrg Drey’lye of Bothawui, head of the Senate Unification Preparations Committee.”
Jagged Fel took the Senator’s hand. “I’m pleased to be working with you.”
“And delighted to meet you. Chief of State Daala sends her compliments and looks forward to meeting you when you make planetfall.”
Jag nodded. “And now, I believe, protocol insists that we open a bottle or a dozen of wine and make some preliminary discussion of security, introduction protocols, and so on.”
“Fortunately about the wine, and regrettably about everything else, you are correct.”
At the end of two full standard hours—Jaina knew from regular, surreptitious consultations of her chrono—Jag was able to convince the Senator and his retinue to accept a tour of the Gilad Pellaeon. He was also able to request a private consultation with the sole representative of the Jedi Order present. Moments later, the gray-walled conference room was empty of everyone but Jag and Jaina.
Jag glanced toward the door. “Security seal, access limited to Jagged Fel and Jedi Jaina Solo, voice identification, activate.” The door hissed in response as it sealed. Then Jag returned his attention to Jaina.
She let an expression of anger and accusation cross her face. “You’re not fooling anyone, Fel. You’re planning for an Imperial invasion of Alliance space.”
Jag nodded. “I’ve been planning it for quite a while. Come here.”
She moved to him, settled into his lap, and was suddenly but not unexpectedly caught in his embrace. They kissed urgently, hungrily.
Finally Jaina drew back and smiled at him. “This isn’t going to be a routine part of your consultations with every Jedi.”
“Uh, no. That would cause some trouble here and at home. But I actually do have business with the Jedi that does not involve the Galactic Alliance, at least not initially.”
“What sort of business?”
“Whether or not the Galactic Empire joins with the Galactic Alliance, I think there ought to be an official Jedi presence in the Empire. A second Temple, a branch, an offshoot, whatever. Providing advice and insight to the Head of State.”
“And protection?”
He shrugged. “Less of an issue. I’m doing all right. Two years in this position and not dead yet.”
“Emperor Palpatine went nearly twenty-five years.”
“I guess that makes him my hero.”
Jaina snorted. “Don’t even say that in jest … Jag, if the Remnant doesn’t join the Alliance, I’m not sure the Jedi can have a presence without Alliance approval.”
“The Order still keeps its training facility for youngsters in Hapan space. And the Hapans haven’t rejoined.”
“You sound annoyed. The Hapans still giving you trouble?”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
“Besides, moving the school back to Alliance space is just a matter of time, logistics, and finances; there’s no question that it will happen. On the other hand, it’s very likely that the government would withhold approval for a Jedi branch in the Remnant, just out of spite, if the Remnant doesn’t join.”
“Well, there’s such a thing as an unofficial presence. And there’s such a thing as rival schools, schismatic branches, and places for former Jedi to go when they can’t be at the Temple.”
Jaina smiled again, but now there was suspicion in her expression. “You just want to have this so I’ll be assigned to come to the Remnant and set it up.”
“That’s a motive, but not the only one. Remember, to the Moffs and to a lot of the Imperial population, the Jedi have been bogeymen since Palpatine died. At the very least, I don’t want them to be inappropriately afraid of the woman I’m in love with.”
Jaina was silent for a moment. “Have we talked enough politics?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
HORN FAMILY QUARTERS,
KALLAD’S DREAM VACATION HOSTEL,
CORUSCANT
Yawning, hair tousled, clad in a blue dressing robe, Valin Horn knew that he did not look anything like an experienced Jedi Knight. He looked like an unshaven, unkempt bachelor, which he also was. But here, in these rented quarters, there would be only family to see him—at least until he had breakfast, shaved, and dressed.
The Horns did not live here, of course. His mother, Mirax, was the anchor for the immediate family. Manager of a variety of interlinked businesses—trading, interplanetary finances, gambling and recreation, and, if rumors were true, still a little smuggling here and there—she maintained her home and business address on Corellia. Corran, her husband and Valin’s father, was a Jedi Master, much of his life spent on missions away from the family, but his true home was where his heart resided, wherever Mirax lived. Valin and his sister, Jysella, also Jedi, lived wherever their missions sent them, and also counted Mirax as the center of the family.
Now Mirax had rented temporary quarters on Coruscant so the family could collect on one of its rare occasions, this time for the Unification Summit, where she and Corran would separately give depositions on the relationships among the Confederation states, the Imperial Remnant, and the Galactic Alliance as they related to trade and Jedi activities. Mirax had insisted that Valin and Jysella leave their Temple quarters and stay with their parents while these events were taking place, and few forces in the galaxy could stand before her decision—Luke Skywalker certainly knew better than to try.
Moving from the refresher toward the kitchen and dining nook, Valin brushed a lock of brown hair out of his eyes and grinned. Much as he might put up a public show of protest—the independent young man who did not need parents to direct his actions or tell him where to sleep—he hardly minded. It was good to see family. And both Corran and Mirax were better cooks than the ones at the Jedi Temple.
There was no sound of conversation from the kitchen, but there was some clattering of pans, so at least one of his parents must still be on hand. As he stepped from the hallway into the dining nook, Valin saw that it was his mother, her back to him as she worked at the stove. He pulled a chair from the table and sat. “Good morning.”
“A joke, so early?” Mirax did not turn to face him, but her tone was cheerful. “No morning is good. I come light-years from Corellia to be with my family, and what happens? I have to keep Jedi hours to see them. Don’t you know that I’m an executive? And a lazy one?”
“I forgot.” Valin took a deep breath, sampling the smells of breakfast. His mother was making hotcakes Corellian-style, nerf sausage links on the side, and caf was brewing. For a moment, Valin was transported back to his childhood, to the family breakfasts that had been somewhat more common before the Yuuzhan Vong came, before Valin and Jysella had started down the Jedi path. “Where are Dad and Sella?”
“Your father is out getting some back-door information from other Jedi Masters for his deposition.” Mirax pulled a plate from a cabinet and began sliding hotcakes and links onto it. “Your sister left early and wouldn’t say what she was doing, which I assume either means it’s Jedi business I can’t know about or that she’s seeing some man she doesn’t want me to know about.”
“Or both.”
“Or both.” Mirax turned and moved over to put the plate down before him. She set utensils beside it.
The plate was heaped high with food, and Valin recoiled from it in mock horror. “Stang, Mom, you’re feeding your son, not a squadron of Gamorreans.” Then he caught sight of his mother’s face and he was suddenly no longer in a joking mood.
This wasn’t his mother.
Oh, the woman had Mirax’s features. She had the round face that admirers had called “cute” far more often than “beautiful,” much to Mirax’s chagrin. She had Mirax’s generous, curving lips that smiled so readily and expressively, and Mirax’s bright, lively brown eyes. She had Mirax’s hair, a glossy black with flecks of gray, worn shoulder-length to fit readily under a pilot’s helmet, even though she piloted far less often these days. She was Mirax to every freckle and dimple.
But she was not Mirax.
The woman, whoever she was, caught sight of Valin’s confusion. “Something wrong?”
“Uh, no.” Stunned, Valin looked down at his plate.
He had to think—logically, correctly, and fast. He might be in grave danger right now, though the Force currently gave him no indication of imminent attack. The true Mirax, wherever she was, might be in serious trouble or worse. Valin tried in vain to slow his heart rate and speed up his thinking processes.
Fact: Mirax had been here but had been replaced by an imposter. Presumably the real Mirax was gone; Valin could not sense anyone but himself and the imposter in the immediate vicinity. The imposter had remained behind for some reason that had to relate to Valin, Jysella, or Corran. It couldn’t have been to capture Valin, as she could have done that with drugs or other methods while he slept, so the food was probably not drugged.
Under Not-Mirax’s concerned gaze, he took a tentative bite of sausage and turned a reassuring smile he didn’t feel toward her.
Fact: Creating an imposter this perfect must have taken a fortune in money, an incredible amount of research, and a volunteer willing to let her features be permanently carved into the likeness of another’s. Or perhaps this was a clone, raised and trained for the purpose of simulating Mirax. Or maybe she was a droid, one of the very expensive, very rare human replica droids. Or maybe a shape-shifter. Whichever, the simulation was nearly perfect. Valin hadn’t recognized the deception until …
Until what? What had tipped him off? He took another bite, not registering the sausage’s taste or temperature, and maintained the face-hurting smile as he tried to recall the detail that had alerted him that this wasn’t his mother.
He couldn’t figure it out. It was just an instant realization, too fleeting to remember, too overwhelming to reject.
Would Corran be able to see through the deception? Would Jysella? Surely, they had to be able to. But what if they couldn’t? Valin would accuse this woman and be thought insane.
Were Corran and Jysella even still at liberty? Still alive? At this moment, the Not-Mirax’s colleagues could be spiriting the two of them away with the true Mirax. Or Corran and Jysella could be lying, bleeding, at the bottom of an access shaft, their lives draining away.
Valin couldn’t think straight. The situation was too overwhelming, the mystery too deep, and the only person here who knew the answers was the one who wore the face of his mother.
He stood, sending his chair clattering backward, and fixed the false Mirax with a hard look. “Just a moment.” He dashed to his room.
His lightsaber was still where he’d left it, on the night-stand beside his bed. He snatched it up and gave it a near-instantaneous examination. Battery power was still optimal; there was no sign that it had been tampered with.
He returned to the dining room with the weapon in his hand. Not-Mirax, clearly confused and beginning to look a little alarmed, stood by the stove, staring at him.
Valin ignited the lightsaber, its snap-hiss of activation startlingly loud, and held the point of the gleaming energy blade against the food on his plate. Hotcakes shriveled and blackened from contact with the weapon’s plasma. Valin gave Not-Mirax an approving nod. “Flesh does the same thing under the same conditions, you know.”
“Valin, what’s wrong?”
“You may address me as Jedi Horn. You don’t have the right to use my personal name.” Valin swung the lightsaber around in a practice form, allowing the blade to come within a few centimeters of the glow rod fixture overhead, the wall, the dining table, and the woman with his mother’s face. “You probably know from your research that the Jedi don’t worry much about amputations.”
Not-Mirax shrank back away from him, both hands on the stove edge behind her. “What?”
“We know that a severed limb can readily be replaced by a prosthetic that looks identical to the real thing. Prosthetics offer sensation and do everything flesh can. They’re ideal substitutes in every way, except for requiring maintenance. So we don’t feel too badly when we have to cut the arm or leg off a very bad person. But I assure you, that very bad person remembers the pain forever.”
“Valin, I’m going to call your father now.” Not-Mirax sidled toward the blue bantha-hide carrybag she had left on a side table.
Valin positioned the tip of his lightsaber directly beneath her chin. At the distance of half a centimeter, its containing force field kept her from feeling any heat from the blade, but a slight twitch on Valin’s part could maim or kill her instantly. She froze.
“No, you’re not. You know what you’re going to do instead?”
Not-Mirax’s voice wavered. “What?”
“You’re going to tell me what you’ve done with my mother!” The last several words emerged as a bellow, driven by fear and anger. Valin knew that he looked as angry as he sounded; he could feel blood reddening his face, could even see redness begin to suffuse everything in his vision.
“Boy, put the blade down.” Those were not the woman’s words. They came from behind. Valin spun, bringing his blade up into a defensive position.
In the doorway stood a man, middle-aged, clean-shaven, his hair graying from brown. He was of below-average height, his eyes a startling green. He wore the brown robes of a Jedi. His hands were on his belt, his own lightsaber still dangling from it.
He was Valin’s father, Jedi Master Corran Horn. But he wasn’t, any more than the woman behind Valin was Mirax Horn.
Valin felt a wave of despair wash over him. Both parents replaced. Odds were growing that the real Corran and Mirax were already dead.
Yet Valin’s voice was soft when he spoke. “They may have made you a virtual double for my father. But they can’t have given you his expertise with the lightsaber.”
“You don’t want to do what you’re thinking about, son.”
“When I cut you in half, that’s all the proof anyone will ever need that you’re not the real Corran Horn.”
Valin lunged.
The STAR WARS Novels Timeline
OLD REPUBLIC 5000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
Lost Tribe of the Sith*
Precipice
Skyborn
Paragon
Savior
Purgatory
Sentinel
3650 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
The Old Republic: Deceived
Lost Tribe of the Sith*
Pantheon
Secrets
Red Harvest
The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance
1032 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
Knight Errant
Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
Darth Bane: Rule of Two
Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil
RISE OF THE EMPIRE 33–0 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
Darth Maul: Saboteur*
Cloak of Deception
Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter
32 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
STAR WARS: EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace
Rogue Planet
Outbound Flight
The Approaching Storm
22 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
STAR WARS: EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones
22-19 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
The Clone Wars
The Clone Wars: Wild Space
The Clone Wars: No Prisoners
Clone Wars Gambit
Stealth
Siege
Republic Commando
Hard Contact
Triple Zero
True Colors
Order 66
Shatterpoint
The Cestus Deception
The Hive*
MedStar I: Battle Surgeons
MedStar II: Jedi Healer
Jedi Trial
Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
Labyrinth of Evil
19 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A New Hope
STAR WARS: EPISODE III: Revenge of the Sith
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
Imperial Commando 501st
Coruscant Nights
Jedi Twilight
Street of Shadows
Patterns of Force
The Han Solo Trilogy
The Paradise Snare
The Hutt Gambit
Rebel Dawn
The Adventures of Lando Calrissian
The Force Unleashed
The Han Solo Adventures
Death Troopers
The Force Unleashed II
REBELLION 0–5 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
Death Star
Shadow Games
0
STAR WARS: EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Tales from the Empire
Tales from the New Republic
Allegiance
Choices of One
Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye
3 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
STAR WARS: EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
Shadows of the Empire
4 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
STAR WARS: EPISODE VI: RETURN OF THE JEDI
Tales from Jabba’s Palace
The Bounty Hunter Wars
The Mandalorian Armor
Slave Ship
Hard Merchandise
The Truce at Bakura
Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
NEW REPUBLIC 5–25 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
X-Wing
Rogue Squadron
Wedge’s Gamble
The Krytos Trap
The Bacta War
Wraith Squadron
Iron Fist
Solo Command
The Courtship of Princess Leia
A Forest Apart*
Tatooine Ghost
The Thrawn Trilogy
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command
X-Wing: Isard’s Revenge
The Jedi Academy Trilogy
Jedi Search
Dark Apprentice
Champions of the Force
I, Jedi
Children of the Jedi
Darksaber
Planet of Twilight
X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar
The Crystal Star
The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy
Before the Storm
Shield of Lies
Tyrant’s Test
The New Rebellion
The Corellian Trilogy
Ambush at Corellia
Assault at Selonia
Showdown at Centerpoint
The Hand of Thrawn Duology
Specter of the Past
Vision of the Future
Fool’s Bargain*
Survivor’s Quest
NEW JEDI ORDER 25–40 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
Boba Fett: A Practical Man*
The New Jedi Order
Vector Prime
Dark Tide I: Onslaught
Dark Tide II: Ruin
Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial
Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
Balance Point
Recovery*
Edge of Victory I: Conquest
Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
Star by Star
Dark Journey
Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
Traitor
Destiny’s Way
Ylesia*
Force Heretic I: Remnant
Force Heretic II: Refugee
Force Heretic III: Reunion
The Final Prophecy
The Unifying Force
35 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
The Dark Nest Trilogy
The Joiner King
The Unseen Queen
The Swarm War
LEGACY 40+ YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
Legacy of the Force
Betrayal
Bloodlines
Tempest
Exile
Sacrifice
Inferno
Fury
Revelation
Invincible
Crosscurrent
Riptide
Millennium Falcon
43 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A New Hope
Fate of the Jedi
Outcast
Omen
Abyss
Backlash
Allies
Vortex
Conviction
Ascension
Apocalypse
*An eBook novella
With the Jedi all but wiped out in the grim aftermath of Order 66, the Empire’s power seems unchecked. But one lone Knight continues to fight the good fight — against all odds and when all else fails.
Deep in the bowels of Coruscant, Jedi Jax Pavan seekes out a living as a private investigator; a go-to, can-do guy for the downtrodden. Now a mysterious Zeltron knockout named Deejah approaches Jax with a case that needs to be cracked: to find out who killed her artist lover Volette, brutally murdered hours after his triumphant unveiling of a dazzling new light sculpture with obvious links to lightsaber pyrotechnics.
Finding Volette’s killer won’t be easy — too many secrets, too many suspects, and all kinds of motives. But with the droid I-5YQ’s help, and ex-reporter Den Dhur’s excellent snooping skills, the investigation is soon operating like a well-oiled machine.
Unfortunately, there’s a far more efficient machine hunting Jax. It’s a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as the clock starts ticking toward the final explosive showdown… to see who strikes first and who will die first.