Part 23 (1/2)

The smile was back, warm and comforting. ”You, Kajin, are one of the most promising initiates of the Inquisitorius. Which is why the Jedi sought to capture you.”

The Inquisitorius.

The ripple of iridescent robes. The flash of a crimson lightsaber.

”Sith,” the boy said. ”I'm a Sith.”

His teacher's smile broadened. ”Good. You do remember.”

Chapter Twenty-Five.

The Inquisitor stepped out into the skyway that terminated in the plaza in front of the Imperial Security Bureau and strode with studied confidence along its length. The personnel who pa.s.sed him tilted their heads in deference to his apparent station and moved on. Not one of them raised their eyes to try to see his face within the obscuring cowl. Apparently even Imperial operatives were so awed by the Inquisitors that they averted their gaze.

This was a plus.

Jax's goal was twofold-to sec how well his disguise worked with no one else's life on the line, and to see if proximity allowed him to sense Kaj.

Laranth he'd had no trouble sensing, though the nature of her contact had been disturbing in the extreme. It had come in a burst of mingled defiance and pain and had left him shaken to the core. He suspected she had been provoked into the brief contact; her captor wanted him to know where she was.

She was there. In that obsidian monolith across the golden surface of the plaza. Jax could see his own reflection in the front of the building as he crossed the plaza- or rather he could see the reflection of a tall, slender Inquisitor moving with cloud-like grace; one among several pa.s.sing to and fro.

He watched as a pair of them, their robes coiling like sanguinary smoke about them, giving them the appearance of crimson ghosts, entered the broad doorway of the ISB. The bureau had become a home away from home for their order-the offices of the Inquisitorius were here, but the order itself was centered in a temple several kilometers away.

The two Inquisitors he watched entered the building without any sort of security check. Jax slowed his pace. Could it be that easy? He thought of Laranth-of that frantic burst of pain and desperation he had felt through the Force-and experienced the urgent desire to walk straight through those doors, find her, and take her out-now. The knowledge that she was in there and had been tortured with enough force to break that iron will, even for a moment, was agonizing.

He swept the place with tendrils of Force. He found Laranth amid the weird, dead echoes from the taozin wards worn by roughly a dozen Inquisitors. It was a tangled presence, its threads looped and knotted, but it was there. She was there.

Of Kaj Savaros, however, there was no sign.

Jax moved slowly along the front of the building to a lift on the far corner, scanning as he went. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Then, abruptly, his regard slipped past another signature of coiled strength. Dark strength-as black and hard and gleaming as this edifice.

Vader.

He withdrew his touch gently and took the lift down several levels before making his circuitous way back to the Whiplash.

”What does it mean?” Tuden Sal glanced at the others in the room-Jax, I-Five, Rhinann, Dejah, and Thi Xon Yimmon. His gaze lingered on Jax.

”It means we can't go through with the a.s.sa.s.sination attempt,” Jax said. ”If we a.s.sa.s.sinate the Emperor, we would lose any chance of ever getting Laranth and Kaj back alive.”

”You're sure they're alive now?”

Jax fingered the hilt of his lightsaber and found it comforting. What would Laranth say about that? He hoped he'd get to find out. ”I can sense Laranth, but not Kaj. Which means one of three things: Kaj is drugged, he's dead, or he's not in the ISB detention center.”

Dejah put her hands to her mouth. ”You don't think he's dead?”

Jax shook his head. ”As I said before, I would have felt that. And it makes no sense for Vader to take him just to kill him. He's too much of an anomaly for that- too potentially useful to him. They'd want to turn him to the dark side. I also don't think he's still drugged. Vader's no fool; he knows that long-term deep sedation can wreak havoc with the Force in an adept.”

”Then what are the alternatives?” asked Thi Xon Yimmon.

”I think they're keeping him somewhere else and that they've found some way to damp down his powers.”

”Correct me if I'm wrong,” said I-Five, ”but this would seem to put paid to our idea of a rescue mission.”

”Pretty much.”

”I don't understand,” said Dejah, frowning. ”Why would that be?”

”They aren't together,” Jax explained. ”We could go in to get Laranth, but I'm pretty sure we won't find Kaj in the same place.”

Dejah made a frustrated gesture. ”But surely, even if we can only rescue Laranth, it's worth the risk?”

Jax threw the Zeltron a sideways glance. ”I hadn't thought you cared all that much for Laranth.”

”You've got it backward-she doesn't care much for me. I'm fine with her, although I find her a bit grim. But you ... you care for her. That's enough reason for me to want to get her back.”

Jax shook his head, partly in negation of the words, partly in negation of the manipulative wash of pheromones that came with them. ”We can't just barge in after her. She ...” He pressed his lips together, shoving the agony of her last touch away. ”I think they're using her as a beacon. Trying to get us to go in after her. I can get into the building as an Inquisitor, but I'd never convince anyone I had the authority to remove the prisoner. If they were just stormtroopers guarding her, that'd be different. But they're Inquisitors.”

I-Five said, ”You're saying they're using her as bait. Not Kaj. Interesting.”

”Bait,” repeated Rhinann. ”For the rest of us.”

”Well, more specifically, for Jax and me.” I-Five looked at the Jedi. ”And perhaps of the two of us, Darth Vader would be most interested in me-if not for what I am, then most certainly for what he thinks I have. I think we should suggest a trade: me for Laranth and the boy.”

There was dead silence in the room. Jax finally found his voice. ”That's insane.”

”I think not. Nor am I suggesting that we actually give me over to Vader. My thought is that with your disguise-which apparently works admirably-we might enter under false pretenses.”

”Enter where?” asked Yimmon. ”You can't be proposing to go into the ISB.”

”If Vader wants me-and the bota, of course-we may have some control over the exchange point.”

”Even so,” Yimmon argued, ”Vader can't be trusted to keep to a bargain. It would be a trap.”

”Of course,” I-Five acknowledged. ”That's to be expected. We'd consider that in our plans.”

Tuden Sal looked as if he had swallowed something particularly sour. ”And may we include in those plans some way of getting the Emperor to the exchange point?”

Jax opened his mouth to say something terse about the new goal of their mission, but I-Five spoke first, his gaze on the Sakiyan.

”I fully expect that the lure of the bota will do that. Consider that, when it comes to that rare and mysterious substance, Palpatine and Vader may find themselves in compet.i.tion. I would think the Emperor would be adamant about being in on the exchange to be certain the bota falls into his hands, not his lieutenant's.”

The Sakiyan snorted. ”If, indeed, he even knows about it.”