Darth Maul readied himself for the final strike.
Darsha sent a second wave of the Force outward, tumbling over yet another tank of fuel. She had managed to move several welding cylinders and fuel cells toward each other. They were heaped together now, an extremely explosive accident waiting to happen.
How appropriate, she thought, to use Master Bondara’s sacrifice as an example.
Darsha let herself think of Lorn for a moment. She hoped the droid had figured out the potential for escape that the carbon-freezing unit represented. If not, then her sacrifice would be in vain.
She had seen Lorn’s face in the hatch window, his expression full of desperation and concern—not for himself, but for her. It had most definitely not been the expression of someone who hated her, or was even indifferent to her fate.
It was too bad, she thought. If they had had more time … If they’d been able to see this through to the end, reach the Jedi Temple together …
But that was not the way it was fated to be.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
She thrust at the Sith, her lightsaber thrumming, and moved into a better position. She had to get this just right, make it look like it wasn’t deliberate.
She left herself open. The Sith immediately took advantage of it.
His blade pierced her side, a fiery hot jet of pain that caused her to cry out.
Darsha Assant released her lightsaber, using the Force to send it forward, still lit, to pierce one of the gas cylinders.
She had time for one last thought.
There is no death; there is the Force.
She knew it was the truth.
Darth Maul saw his opponent’s strategy, realizing what she planned to do nearly too late. He jumped, using the Force to propel him upward toward one of the high windows. He smashed through it easily and landed on a nearby walkway as the explosive canisters within detonated.
Fortunately, the strong walls of the structure contained the explosion. The Padawan had been truly devious at the end; he now realized she’d been preparing the trap with her feeble Force attacks. A far more worthy opponent than he’d realized.
Her actions had cost him the pleasure of killing his primary target. Maul offered a smile to her memory. Not all could fight so well; this was to be honored.
A crowd was beginning to gather. He had to make sure his mission was complete, and that was best done quickly. He leapt back to the window he had just broken through. Smoke was pouring from it now; through it he could dimly make out the inferno that the chamber had become. He used the Force to momentarily dissipate the clouds and saw below him the waste-containment unit that his target had hidden in. The contained pressure wave of the explosion had ripped it open; Maul could see shattered and twisted pieces of equipment.
Nothing could have survived that. He saw no trace whatsoever of either the Padawan’s or Lorn Pavan’s bodies; the explosion had vaporized them.
His mission at last was complete.
Still, it behooved him to be absolutely certain. After all, Pavan had proved extraordinarily hard to kill, had even survived a previous explosion. Maul had to make sure.
He asked the dark side, sending investigatory vibrations throughout the chamber, searching for any signs of life.
There were none.
Excellent.
Darth Maul dropped back down to the walkway. Paying no attention to the milling onlookers, he pulled his cowl up and walked away from the burning building.
It was time to inform his master of his success. At last.
Obi-Wan Kenobi sensed death as he once more neared the site of Master Bondara’s wrecked skycar. It wasn’t the Jedi’s passing that he had noticed earlier; this was something new.
As he drew closer he saw smoke rising from the street and noticed strobes flashing from police cruisers surrounding the area. Obviously some new disaster had occurred here—one important enough to bring the local law enforcement out.
After leaving the Tusken Oasis, he had decided to return to the last place that Darsha and Master Bondara had been seen, which was in the latter’s skycar. A floating barricade warned the Padawan to stay back, and for a second Obi-Wan considered doing so. This was the Crimson Corridor, after all. No doubt some unconnected crime was being investigated here, and if that was the case, he would only get in the way.
But then he felt it again—the sense of foreboding that had so unnerved him when he’d been at the site before.
Obi-Wan maneuvered his vehicle past the barricade. A forensics droid was ready to warn him off, but when it saw that he was a Jedi Padawan, it let him through. The Jedi did not like to use their secular powers, but within the structures of the Republic they were legally empowered to cross police lines on any investigation that touched on their own.
As he landed just outside the scanning line of police lasers, two plainclothes investigators—a Mrlssi and a Sullustan, both of whom looked like they’d rather be anywhere but here—made their way to intercept him. The Mrlssi spoke first.
“Can we help you?”
Obi-Wan decided to see what response he got with part of the truth. There was no reason for them to know that two Jedi Knights had gone missing.
“I’ve been following reports of a criminal who has been reported operating in the area. Apparently there have been some assaults …” He let his statement taper off, focusing on the reactions of the pair, hoping to provoke a response. “I was led to believe that there might be some connection here.”
The Sullustan looked at the Mrlssi. “Well, yeah, there might be. Come have a look.”
Obi-Wan followed the two over toward a new piece of wreckage, perhaps half a block from Master Bondara’s vehicle. Although it had been badly burned and the metal twisted in the heat of the fire, it was plain that a large section of the police unit had been sheared away, and there was a cut through the canopy where the pilot droid would have sat.
“Any ideas, Padawan? …”
“Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
The Sullustan spoke. “Recognize the skycar type?”
Obi-Wan shook his head. “Is there any significance to it?”
The investigator nodded. “This is—or was—a PCBU: police cruiser backup unit. They’re specifically designed to aid officers answering calls in places like the Crimson Corridor. SOP is to hover back ten meters, up fifteen meters from answering units.”
Obi-Wan could see the problem they were wrestling with. How could someone get fifteen meters into the air to reach the PCBU without getting shot?
“Was anyone killed?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.
“Two patrol officers,” the Mrlssi said.
Obi-Wan nodded to the two investigators. “This may be the work of Black Sun operatives. I will contact the Temple regarding this. You will have the full cooperation of the Jedi in this matter.” So saying, he turned away, heading back to his skycar.
This matter had now grown too large to be dealt with by one Jedi Padawan. Given possible involvement with Black Sun, and now the death of two Coruscant officers, Obi-Wan knew that the only prudent thing to do was to report back to his superiors. A full-scale investigation would have to be launched, in cooperation with the security forces.
He raised his skycar up to around the tenth level—below the lowest stratum of traffic, but high enough to ensure a relatively straight course back to the Temple. Whatever was going on, he was certain now that it involved far more than just the disappearance of Master Bondara and Darsha.
Darth Sidious could feel a slight disturbance in the Force before his scrambled comlink chimed, and knew by this that his apprentice was about to contact him. He stepped to the holoprojector and activated the grid. Privacy failsafes glowed green before he spoke.
“My apprentice. Your mission is complete.”
It was a statement, not a question. Sidious knew Darth Maul would not call to report failure, and there were no untoward signs in the energies that surrounded his imag
e.
“Yes, my master. The Jedi Padawan died in combat. She fought well, for a neophyte. An explosion generated from our battle destroyed Lorn Pavan and his droid.”
Darth Sidious nodded. He could feel the truth of the statement even at this distance. This was excellent news. Any leaks that could impact his plans had been sealed. Certainly there would be other challenges—he didn’t trust the Neimoidians’ abilities in combat any more than he did their veracity—but such obstacles would come only after his plan was too far along to be stopped.
“I will require you to bring the holocron to this location.” Sidious gave Maul the coordinates and the specialized instructions his apprentice would require to get past the security droids. Darth Maul acknowledged the instructions.
“Be most wary, my apprentice. Our stealth is vital. The Jedi will be most unhappy at the loss of two of their number, and will be searching for answers. You must see that they find none.”
Darth Sidious did not wait for a response; none was necessary. With a gesture he closed the relay, breaking the connection.
It was time to make other preparations. Time to finally put into motion the plan that had taken decades to set up. The strategy that would culminate in the final destruction of the Jedi.
Soon.
Very soon.
Obi-Wan pushed the skycar to the maximum safe speed, swooping through the narrow maze of streets and buildings. Suddenly his attention was distracted by a rumble and a flash of orange light two streets over.
Yet another explosion, he thought wonderingly as he headed toward its source. He didn’t know what was going on, but if it didn’t stop soon, this sector of the city was going to look like it had been bombed from orbit.
He brought his skycar to a stop on a landing platform and walked cautiously closer to the inferno, using the Force once more to try to discern what had happened. His senses expanded into the building, detecting no life, but picking up the residual disturbances of a powerful struggle. He could sense Darsha’s presence and the same tendrils of evil that had plagued him all day. Looking around, the Padawan noticed a section of burned rubble that had been blasted from the entrance. Something gleamed in the debris, and he stepped forward to see what it was.
Shock sent waves of jangling sensations up his body, and he had to still himself, force his mind to unclench and accept what he was seeing.
He used the Force to grasp the shiny bit of metal, pulling it out of the rubble, bringing it to his hand.
It was the twisted, melted hilt of a lightsaber, its body scorched almost beyond recognition.
Almost.
In practice duels at the Temple, two Padawans traditionally exchanged salutes prior to their match, raising their lightsaber hilts to their foreheads before igniting the energy coils. Obi-Wan had noted more than once the carefully wound wire grip on Darsha’s weapon, a unique design.
The same design he was looking at now.
The Force confirmed it, as if there were any doubt. Darsha Assant was dead.
Obi-Wan Kenobi stood quietly, looking at the hilt in his hand.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
How he wished it were so.
Lorn stared up at the brightest light he had ever seen.
He felt … brittle, as though he might crack into countless pieces if he tried to move. There was a strange ringing in his ears, an odd smell in his nostrils. His eyes refused to focus. Everything seemed dreamlike. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there.
Abruptly the light—which he now realized was the sun—was blotted out by a familiar face.
“Good—you’re awake. How do you feel?”
Lorn moved his jaw experimentally, found that he could speak without too much difficulty. “Like a battle dog’s chew-toy.” He sat up, his vision still blurred, a multitude of aches trying to drag him down. “What happened?”
I-Five didn’t reply for a moment. “You don’t remember our recent … situation?”
Lorn looked around him. He and the droid were on a small setback roof about halfway up the side of a building. The last thing he remembered …
He turned and looked in another direction. Perhaps fifty meters away was the building they had been trapped in by the Sith. He remembered Darsha opening the door, remembered seeing the Sith framed in the doorway—but nothing more than that. He said as much to I-Five.
The droid nodded. “Loss of short-term memory. Not surprising, given the trauma of recent events and the carbon-freezing.” He helped Lorn to his feet. “Can you walk?”
Lorn tested his balance. “I think so.”
“Good. The authorities will no doubt be here soon, but with any luck Tuden Sal will arrive before they do.”
Tuden Sal. For some reason the name triggered more flashes of memory. “You froze us in carbonite.”
I-Five nodded. “The waste-treatment chamber we were in was set up to contain volatile materials for transport. It was simply a matter of readjusting the parameters for—”
It hit him then, like a stun grenade at close range. “Darsha!”
The sunlight, so much brighter than he was accustomed to, faded momentarily back to the grayness of downlevels. I-Five’s mechanical hand gripped his upper arm, steadying him.
Darsha, the Jedi Padawan, the woman with whom he’d shared the last tumultuous forty-eight hours—the woman who’d come to mean, in that short and intense time, more to him than anyone except Jax and I-Five—Darsha was dead.
No. It couldn’t be. The droid and he had managed to cheat certain death; surely there had been some way that she, too, might have.
He looked desperately at I-Five. Saw that the droid knew what was going through his head. And read, somehow, in the other’s metallic, expressionless face, the truth.
They had escaped because she had bought them time—had bought it with her own heart’s blood.
That part came back, too. She was … gone.
“What happened?” he asked dully.
“She managed to stack some of the flammable containers together during her battle and ignited them as she was struck down.”
Struck down.
Lorn was quiet as they made their way to the roof’s edge.
“Why aren’t we dead?”
“Carbonite is extremely dense. It survived the explosion, and since we were encysted within it, so did we. There was a process timer, which I set to thaw us after a half hour. Then I thought it prudent for us to relocate.”
Lorn nodded slowly. “What about the Sith? Did he survive, or did he die with—” He could not bring himself to finish the sentence.
“Unknown. If he did survive—which, were we dealing with anyone else, I would deem extremely unlikely—then in all probability he thinks we’re dead. The carbon-freezing lowered all biological and electronic processes to a level far too faint for even a master of the Force to detect.”
Lorn stretched his arms and twisted cautiously from side to side. Other than a major headache, he seemed to be experiencing no adverse effects. All in all, he’d had hangovers that were worse.
A pinging sound came from I-Five’s midsection. “That would be our ride,” the droid said, pulling the comlink out of his torso compartment and activating it. He confirmed their location and toggled it off.
Within seconds a large black skycar with a canopied roof and dark windows dropped toward them, its side doors opening when it reached their level. Lorn looked in and saw that Tuden Sal himself had come to pick them up.
“I’m wondering what you two have gotten yourselves involved in this time,” Sal said as the chauffeured skycar lifted away from the scene. He glanced out the tinted window at the destruction below. “But given what I see down there, I’m not sure I want to know.”
“A wise decision,” I-Five said, as he leaned over to look out the side window. “The less you know, the less they can indict you for.”
The skycar was drifting higher, heading toward a traffic lane that would take them to Eastport,
where one of Sal’s restaurants was located. I-Five tapped Lorn on the arm and pointed out the side window.
“You may not want to see this,” he said.
Lorn looked out the window and saw a tiny figure in black striding along one of the elevated walkways below. He felt his insides ice over as if he’d been plunged once more into carbonite. He got only a glimpse of the figure, who was pretty far away, but it looked like—
His throat was dry; he had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Got enhancers on this crate?” he asked Tuden Sal, who was slouched on the cushioned bench across from him.
The restaurateur was a Sakiyan—short, stocky, and possessed of skin that looked like burnished metal. He nodded and tapped a control alongside the window panel. The aircar was the epitome of plushness: tiny drink dispenser, high-powered comlink, and an interspecies climate control. Instantly, in response to Sal’s command, the tiny figure below became much larger, zooming to fill up half the window. His cowl was up, covering his face, and the enhancement threatened to break up the image into component blocks of digital artifacting, but Lorn recognized him nonetheless.
It was the Sith.
As he watched, the cowled killer pulled something from his belt compartment and held it up to look at. A request to Sal caused the enhancer to focus on it. Lorn wasn’t surprised to see the holocron in the Sith’s hand.
“Friend of yours?” Sal asked.
Lorn shook his head. “Not at all. But I’d like to keep track of him. Do you mind if we take a little detour?”
“No problem. I owe you, Lorn.”
“Keep the enhancers at full, and stay as far back as you can,” I-Five advised.
Sal toggled a switch and gave the droid chauffeur the instructions. They began to follow the cowled figure at the maximum visible distance, just barely keeping him in sight.
Darth Maul reined in his connection to the dark side and made his shadow within it as small as he could. His master was right: It would not do to succeed in silencing the enemies of the Sith only to reveal himself to others of them through a mistake.
Star Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter Page 22