Part 7 (1/2)

Lorn saw no reason to elaborate on his own personal distaste for the Jedi to Yanth. ”They claim to have very little discretionary funds for this sort of thing,” he said. ”Besides, I wouldn't put it past them to use their mind tricks to force me into handing it over for free.” He glanced surrept.i.tiously at his chrono and said, ”So, are you interested or not? I can always take it directly to the Naboo representative here on Coruscant.”

Yanth waved a pudgy hand in a placating gesture. ”Patience, my friend. Yes, I am interested. But-and please don't take this as a reflection on you -I would be a fool not to test its authenticity before handing you a stack of credits.”

Lorn kept his face carefully expressionless. If Yanth suspected the time crunch they were in, the Hutt would have no compunctions about using it as leverage to gouge a cheaper price. On the other hand, time was most definitely running out. ”And just how do you plan on doing that?” he asked the Hutt.

Yanth simply smiled and slid several facets of the crystal aside at various angles, manipulating it much as one might a child's geometric puzzle. After a moment a beam projected from the holocron's uppermost surface, resolving into a midair display of glowing words and images that slowly curtained up the length of the holographic frame before vanis.h.i.+ng.

Lorn was too far away to read the text-not only that, but he was behind the display, so that the words and alphanumerics appeared reversed to him. The text seemed to be in Basic, however, and the images looked like schematics for Naboo N-l starfighters and Trade Federation s.h.i.+ps.

Yanth rotated a facet, and the images cut off. ”Opening one of these holocrons can be somewhat tricky,” he said. ”Neimoidians as a species are not overly clever.”

I-Five said, ”Excellent. Now you know the article is genuine. We are asking a million credits.”

”Done,” Yanth replied, much to Lorn's surprise. ”It is worth ten times that.” The Hutt turned to a control console near at hand and pressed a b.u.t.ton.

Lorn permitted himself another glance at his timepiece. They could still reach the s.p.a.ceport, if everything continued to proceed smoothly.

In another hour Coruscant, the mysterious Sith killer, and the police would be vanis.h.i.+ng into the void behind them.

Darth Maul neatly and quickly excised the lock on the underground cubicle with one blade of his lightsaber, as he had earlier at Hath Monchar's building. He stepped inside quickly, letting the door slide closed behind him. Harsh glow lamps flickered on automatically, illuminating a living s.p.a.ce even smaller and tawdrier than the one the Neimoidian had rented. The compartment was empty; the only possible place where someone might hide was the refresher, and it was the work of only a few seconds to make sure that was empty, as well.

Maul stepped to a section of wall that held a vid-screen and message unit. He activated the latter. An image formed in midair; the image of a Hutt. He recognized the creature: Yanth, an up-and-coming gangster in the Black Sun organization-one of the few who had survived the slaughter Maul had recently unleashed. The Hurt's image spoke. ”Lorn, I thought we were going to meet sometime today, to discuss a certain Holocron you wished me to look at. It's not polite to keep buyers waiting, you know.” Maul turned and strode out of the cubicle, moving quickly.

CHAPTER 13.

All too soon, Darsha a.s.sant found herself back in the underbelly of Coruscant.

When she had escaped the area earlier that day, she had estimated that by now she would have been stripped of her rank and rea.s.signed to the agricultural corps. She had envisioned herself in the process of packing her belongings and saying her good-byes. That she might instead be returning to the scene of her disgrace with her mentor had certainly never occurred to her.

And yet, here she was, seated beside Anoon Bondara in the latter's four-person skycar, heading back toward the Crimson Corridor and the monad where she had lost the Fondorian and nearly lost her life, as well.

The ways of the Force were nothing if not unpredictable.

”That's the one,” she said, pointing toward the tower that rose up ahead, stark against the afternoon sun. ”Down there.”

Master Bondara said nothing as he angled the skycar out of the flow of traffic. They slipped into a vertical descent lane and began dropping.

The mist that seemed always present around the hundred-meter mark, demarcating the thriving upper levels from the slums below, wrapped around them momentarily and then faded away, to be replaced with an aerial view of the dark streets. Though it was still daylight above, down here it was at best a dim perpetual twilight.

She watched the wall of the building slip past, and pointed out to her mentor the ascension gun's grapnel, still hooked to a ledge. They followed the cable into the miasmic depths.

When they were ten meters above the pavement, Master Bondara turned on the landing lights. The section of street below them was illuminated.

Darsha, looking over the side, could see shadowy figures, long conditioned to prefer darkness to light, scuttling away.

There was no sign of the Fondorian. In all probability his body had been dragged away by scavengers. There was, however, a smear of purplish blood on the pavement and, nearby, the body of a hawk-bat, its neck broken in the fall. Master Bondara trained one of the lights on that and looked at it. His lekku slumped slightly, along with his shoulders. And, watching him, Darsha realized that her last hope of salvaging the mission was finally, irrevocably dead.

”What shall we do now?” she asked him softly.

He was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed and said, ”Return to the Temple. We must report what has happened to the council.”

So there it was, she thought. Oddly enough, now that she knew hope was dead, she did not feel the crus.h.i.+ng sorrow that she had antic.i.p.ated.

Instead she felt a surprising sense of relief. The worst had happened, and now she would find a way to deal with it. As with most looming disasters, the reality was almost anticlimactic compared to the dreadful antic.i.p.ation.

Up to this point her concern about the mission had left little room for her to feel sympathy for Oolth the Fondorian. Now, however, looking at the stain of his blood on the walkway, she felt compa.s.sion well within her. He had been an obnoxious poltroon, and no doubt a conscienceless criminal, but few people deserved a death as horrible as his had been.

Master Bondara fed power to the repulsors, and the skycar began to rise.

Lorn watched as one of the Hurt's flunkies delivered a large case to his master. Yanth opened it, and Lorn grew dizzy at the sight. It was filled with crisp Republic credit standards in thousand-denomination notes. Yanth turned the case toward him, displaying the wealth, and Lorn could feel his fingers twitching with the desire to take possession of it. He hadn't seen that much hard cash in-he had never seen that much cash in one place before.

”One million nonsequential Republic credits,” Yanth said, as casually as if he was discussing the weather. ”You take them- I keep this.” He held up the holocron. ”Everybody's happy.”

Lorn didn't know or care about everybody, but he was sure of one thing-he was happy. He watched, still hardly able to believe this was happening, as I-Five stepped forward to take possession of the money that would transform their lives. He glanced at his chrono. Just enough time to get to the s.p.a.ceport, if they left now.

I-Five was reaching for the case when the door behind them suddenly flew open. A Chevin bodyguard staggered backwards into Yanth's sanctum, a force pike dropping from his nerveless fingers. It clattered across the floor to the foot of the dais. The leathery-skinned being looked down at his chest, in the middle of which was a smoking hole, and then collapsed.

Through the door stepped a nightmare.

Lorn stared in shock at the apparition. The Chevin's killer was almost two meters tall and dressed entirely in black, including hooded cloak, boots, and heavy gauntlets. He carried a lightsaber unlike any Lorn had ever seen: It boasted not one but two energy blades, emanating from either end of the hilt. But as intimidating as his weapon was, it was his face that struck true horror into Lorn's heart. The killer pulled back his hood, revealing a countenance that was a sinister variegation of red and black tattoos around gleaming yellow eyes and blackened teeth. From the bald scalp sprouted ten short horns, like a demonic crown. He stared balefully at the others in the room, then spoke in a guttural voice.

”None shall survive.” Lorn was completely frozen to the spot, unable to offer any resistance, as the killer stepped toward him. His eyes shone like twin suns as he raised the lightsaber.

I-Five grabbed the case full of money from Yanth and hurled it between Lorn and his attacker just as the Utter swung the lightsaber in a flat arc that would have separated the Corellian's head from his neck. The case intercepted the blade's swing; the plasmatic edge sliced through the case, scattering burning credits everywhere. The force of the blow was so strong that It probably would still have decapitated Lorn, but its momentum was slowed just enough to give the droid time to dive forward, knocking his friend out of harm's way. Lorn felt the heat as the blade's incandescent tip seared through his hair.

The Sith-for there was no doubt in Lorn's mind that he was facing one of those legendary Dark Lords out of the mists of the past-recovered almost in-stantly and swung around to attack again. But by this time both Gamorrean guards had pulled their blasters and were firing. The Sith spun the double-bladed weapon before him, deflecting the blasterfire back at the guards. That was all Lorn had time to see before I-Five yanked him to his feet and pulled him through the doorway.

They fled down the narrow corridor that led from Yanth's sanctum, pa.s.sing several more dead guards And two piles of melted, twisted metal that had once been droids. Yanth's headquarters was beneath a nightclub he owned called the Tusken Oasis; Lorn and I-Five stumbled up a short flight of stairs and burst out into a blue-lit chamber full of sabacc tables, dejarik game boards, and scantily clad females of various species dancing on pedestals. They hurtled through the room and out the entrance.

”Where are we going?!” Lorn shouted as they ran down the street.

”Away from there!” I-Five shouted back. Lorn wanted to protest that it wouldn't make any difference; he had looked into the eyes of the Sith, and he had seen his doom there, as plainly as the tattooed whorls that surrounded those eyes-an implacable fate that would hunt him down no matter how far and how fast he ran. But he had no breath in him to speak no breath left for running either, but the fear of what he had seen in those eyes kept him running anyway. Maul saw his quarry slip past him, but could do nothing to stop their flight while his attention was oc-cupied by the two Gamorreans. Using one hand to spin the lightsaber in a blazing pattern that blocked the particle beam bursts, he gestured with his free hand, plucking the invisible lines of the Force and sending reverberations that caused the blasters to fly from the surprised guards' grips. Before they had time to recover from their surprise, Maul leapt forward, skewering first one and then the other with quick, deadly thrusts. The lifeless Gamorreans sagged to the floor, and Maul wheeled quickly about to deal with the Hurt.

Despite his bulk, Yanth could move quickly when he had to. He slithered off the dais and grabbed up the force pike dropped by the Chevin. He hurled it at Maul, who slashed it in two with a sweep of his own weapon.

The generator in the pike's shaft shorted out in a shower of sparks.

Yanth had not waited to see the results of his attack. His ma.s.sive bulk moved rapidly, slithering through the singed and blackened credit notes that littered the floor, the holocron crystal still clutched in one hand.

He had almost reached the exit when Maul leapt, executing a twisting forward flip that covered the length of the large chamber and deposited him directly in front of the Hutt. Before Yanth could recover from his surprise, Darth Maul plunged one of the lightsaber's blades deep into the Hurt's chest. The stench of burning flesh and blubber filled the room. Yanth died with a croaking gurgle, the gelid ma.s.s of his body sagging bonelessly to the floor.

Maul deactivated both blades. He reached out with his free hand, and the holocron leapt from the dead Hutt's grasp into his own. Stuffing it into a belt compartment, he turned and ran from the room. At the top of the stairs he plunged recklessly through the gambling chamber, hurling guests and workers aside with savage Force-laden gestures.

He reached the street and paused, looking first one way, then another for his prey. Pavan and the droid were not in sight. Maul gritted his teeth.