by Timothy Zahn
Obi-Wan suppressed a grimace. So that was what he and the adult had been doing back in the marketplace. The boy had handed over the stolen burst thrusters and gotten the controller in exchange.
Either that, or he'd stolen the controller earlier in the day. In that case, he might still have the thrusters.
"Only if the split-X doesn't have a back stability problem," Anakin said. "What kind of coupling you have on it? Binary or tertiary?"
"Binary," Duefgrin said. "I couldn't afford a tertiary."
"Let me take a look," Anakin offered, starting toward him. "If that's okay?" he added, looking at Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan looked questioningly at the three Brolf adults. "Sure, go ahead," Duefgrin's uncle said, waving a hand. "The sooner he gets that junk heap working and out of the yard, the sooner the neighbors will quit complaining about it."
"Thanks," Obi-Wan said, mentally crossing the three adults off his suspects' list. If they were willing to let strangers wander freely through the area, they probably weren't hiding any plots. "Okay, Anakin, but make it quick."
"Sure," Anakin called back over his shoulder. Already, Obi-Wan noted, he and Duefgrin were deep into technical talk. "I'll be ready to leave when you are."
"I've heard that before," Obi-Wan said under his breath as he followed them into the courtyard. Still, Duefgrin himself could be involved with a group of plotters without his uncle's knowledge. It wouldn't hurt for Obi-Wan to take a leisurely turn or two around the house ring while the teenagers worked, stretching out with the Force for any signs of violent intent.
And after that, he would pry Anakin away from whatever it was Duefgrin was building and they would see what kind of luck Lorana was having.
The young Brolf thief, Lorana had noticed, had left the rendezvous at a casual walk, without any indication that he suspected he might be followed or, indeed, any indication that he even cared whether he was or not.
The adult Brolf was another kettle of Giju entirely. He was about as blatantly nervous and suspicious as it was possible to be without actually carrying a sign to that effect. Every dozen steps he threw a quick look over his shoulder, and he crossed and recrossed the street at least once a block. Every block or two he changed directions, sometimes pausing at one of the open-air shops lining the street and pretending to examine the merchandise while actually studying the pedestrians behind him.
It was so ludicrous that it was almost funny. But Lorana felt no urge to laugh. Riske was a professional, with a professional's bearing and subtlety. This Brolf was just the opposite: an amateur conspirator, with an amateur's lack of finesse or ability. And it was the amateur-uncalculating, unthinking, unpredictable—who was often the more dangerous opponent.
Fortunately, it was also the amateur who was the easier to deceive. Lorana had picked up a few tricks about tailing people during her years of Jedi training, and over the next hour she ended up using every one of them. She varied her distance from the Brolf, ducked through alleys and side streets to get ahead of him, and periodically altered her appearance by putting her robe's hood up or down or using a cord to tie her hair back instead of letting it hang free.
Eventually, the Brolf's paranoia seemed to ease, and his convoluted path straightened out as he turned northwest. Lorana stayed as far back as she could, watching the ornamentation and value of the homes and shops around her steadily diminishing as they moved farther and farther into one of the poorer areas of the district. Whereas the richer neighborhoods had waist-high walls or fences to delineate the property lines, here the boundaries were marked off by low, tightly woven hedges or simple rows of distinctive flowering plants. A fair sprinkling of the pedestrians she passed wore tunics with Mining Guild markings, she noted, and many of them paused in their activities to scrutinize her as she passed through their midst.
More than once she thought about calling Obi-Wan and asking for advice or assistance. More often than that she considered simply turning around and heading back to the safe familiarity of the city center, leaving whatever plots and counterplots to be dealt with by those with more wisdom and experience in such matters.
But each time she took a calming breath, stretched out to the Force, and continued on. A Jedi should never turn away from a path merely because it seems hard or dangerous.
She was just passing one of the low' hedges when she felt a warning flicker from the Force.
She kept walking, resisting the impulse to break step. The vague sense of threat was still too diffuse, and coming to a sudden halt would only tip off her unknown foes that she was aware of them. A few more steps, a little carelessness on their part, and she should be able to switch the tables when they made their move.
Her patience was rewarded. A few meters along the sense came into sudden focus: two Brolfi, coming up quickly but silently behind her, both of them simmering with suspicion. She caught the whisper of metal rubbing against cloth
She stopped abruptly, the sleeve of her robe catching briefly on the hedge beside her as she spun around to face them. "Yes?" she asked mildly.
The Brolfi twitched with surprise, coming to a slightly shambling halt a couple of meters away from her. The shorter of the two, Lorana saw, had an antique blaster tucked tightly against his side, as if pressing it against his leg would actually hide it from her. The larger had a less sophisticated but equally nasty weapon: a miner's quarter-pick ax. "What are you doing here?" the shorter demanded.
"Is this not a public street?" Lorana asked.
"You don't belong here," the larger growled, taking a step toward her and fingering his ax restlessly. "What are you looking for?"
"What could be here that anyone would look for?" she countered, feeling her heartbeat starting to pick up. This was it. Somehow, though she wasn't sure exactly how, she knew beyond a doubt that she'd found the threat that Riske had been trying to locate.
The question now was what she should do about it. Because these two Brolfi—or even these two plus the one she'd been following—were merely the edge of the grove. Whipping out her lightsaber would put her no closer to learning the details of the plot or who ultimately was behind it. What she really needed was for them to take her to the actual leaders.
And for them to do' that, they would have to think she was harmless.
"Never mind," she said, taking as a step backward, staying close to the hedge beside her. "If you want me to go, I'll go."
"Not so fast," the smaller Brolf said, apparently emboldened by her sudden apparent nervousness. "What's your hurry?"
"No hurry," Lorana said. She took another step backward, hoping she wasn't getting too close to the end of this particular section of hedge. "I'm just ready to leave, that's all." She threw a glance to the side, wishing she knew which of the dilapidated house rings around them the two Brolfi had come out of.
Apparently, her glance was close enough. "Get her, Vissfil," the shorter Brolf snapped, swinging up his blaster and pointing it nervously. "She knows."
"I don't know anything," Lorana protested, taking a final step back as Vissfil strode toward her, his ax held high. "Please—don't hurt me." She lifted her hands toward the ax as if to ward off an expected blow.
And with Vissfil's full attention on her uplifted hands, and his body blocking his companion's view, she stretched out with the Force, sliding her lightsaber from inside her tunic and shoving it into concealment inside the hedge beside her.
"Get her comlink," the smaller Brolf ordered as Vissfil shifted his ax to one hand and pulled her robe partially open with the other.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Vissfil growled. For all his size and gruffness, he was clearly uncomfortable as he ran his hand gingerly over her body. He found her comlink and stuffed it inside his own tunic; then, almost as an afterthought, he relieved her of her belt with its attached food and equipment pouches. "No weapons," he announced, taking a step back from her. "What do we do with her?"
"Take her to Defender, I guess," the other said. He gestured her t
oward the ring house she'd glanced toward earlier. "He'll know what to do. This way, human."
They were crossing the street when Lorana heard a soft tone from behind her, and glanced back to see the smaller Brolf draw a comlink from his tunic. "What?" he muttered.
She couldn't hear the voice coming from the comlink, but it was impossible to miss the sudden spike in the Brolf's tension level. "Right," he muttered, then put the instrument away. "Change of plans," he announced, stepping close to Lorana and pressing the muzzle of his blaster against her back. "We're going to that house over there." He pointed to a blue house to their left.
Lorana felt her throat tighten. The indicated house had the look of a place that had been abandoned for years. The only reason to take her there would be for a serious interrogation, or to shut her up permanently.
On the other hand, they didn't know who they had here. She could play along and wait for her opportunity, watching for the warning signs that the game was nearly over
With the Brolf's intent masked by his overall anxiety, the stun blast that rippled across her back came as a complete surprise. Before she could even begin to run through the countermeasures she'd been trained in, the nerve-deadening wave swept over her, plunging her into darkness.
"Well?" the Brolf who called himself Patriot growled.
Doriana didn't bother to answer. Standing at the window, he watched as Vissfil and his brother worked their way up the uneven walkway toward the dilapidated blue house, carrying the unconscious form of Padawan Lorana Jinzler between them.
And the two idiots had nearly brought her here. If Doriana hadn't been watching out the window and seen them coming .. .
He waited until the group had disappeared inside. Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned to face Patriot. "If this is an example of your security," he said, measuring out each word, "it's a wonder you're not all pinioned to shame posts by now."
"There is no problem," Patriot insisted. "It's only a single human, who had no time to alert any friends she might have."
"Any weapons?"
"None," Patriot said.
Doriana frowned. "None?"
"We are not children, Defender," Patriot growled. "We know how to search someone for weapons."
"Of course you do," Doriana said, feeling his skin prickling. Jinzler must have left her lightsaber with Kenobi and Sky-walker, knowing it would be a dead giveaway as to who she really was. Did that mean the other two were already nearby, waiting an opportune moment to move in?
Regardless, it was well past time to wrap this up. "Do you have the final two burst thrusters?" he asked.
"Jhompfi just arrived with them," Patriot said. "He's passed them to Migress, who's already on his way to where the missile is being prepared. They'll be installed within the hour."
"Jhompfi being the one the human female was following, I presume?"
Patriot's eyes narrowed. "I've already said she can do us no damage. We'll be leaving this house ring as soon as you fulfill your part of the bargain. All is well."
"Of course," Doriana said. All was well; except that Jinzler could identify Jhompfi by face, and had obviously seen him with the thrusters .. .
He took another calming breath, keeping his tirade to himself. Yes, Patriot and his fellow conspirators were idiots. But then, he'd known that going in.
"I still don't understand why so many thrusters are needed," Patriot said, a hint of suspicion creeping into his voice. "A normal missile would require only two."
"A normal missile would arc high over the marketplace, where Argente's security forces could destroy it at their leisure,"
Doriana pointed out. "The weapon I've designed for you is known as a slinker: a projectile that will fly at waist height directly through the archway of the administration building, find its way along the corridors to the conference room, and there explode, destroying the traitors and would-be traitors alike."
"So you claim," Patriot said, his tone still suspicious. "I've never heard of a weapon that was able to find its way through a building without a full droid control system."
"That's because no weapon you've heard of has had my special guidance system," Doriana said, pulling a data card from his pocket. "It will locate the outer archway and seek out its targets, wherever they hide."
"Without its sensor emissions being detected?" Patriot asked, taking the card carefully.
"Neither detected nor jammed," Doriana assured him. "It doesn't rely on sensor frequencies the security forces will be monitoring."
In actual fact, of course, the card didn't rely on sensors at all. It was nothing more than a geographically programmed course director that would take the missile on the precise path Doriana himself had systematically paced out on his last trip to Barlok. And far from seeking out the negotiators, if C'baoth suddenly decided to hold the meeting in a different room tomorrow morning, the missile would find itself going to the wrong place entirely. That would be embarrassing, not to mention disastrous.
But that was as unlikely as Patriot and his simple-minded conspirators realizing how thoroughly the flopbrim was being pulled over their eyes. Nothing impressed people more than the perception that they were being entrusted with exotic technology.
"Then our victory is assured," Patriot said, fingering the data card almost reverently.
"It is indeed," Doriana said. "One final matter, then. Were you planning to return to your homes when you leave here this evening?"
"Of course," Patriot said, frowning. "We'll need a good meal, and sleep—"
"And you'll get them as far from your homes as you can travel," Doriana interrupted. "From this time onward, you must stay strictly away from your families and your other friends."
Patriot's whole body jerked in stages, from his feet up to a little whiplash jerk of his head. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that by noon tomorrow, with Magistrate Argente and Guildmaster Gilfrome lying dead, the authorities will descend upon the homes of every member of your guild," Doriana said coldly. "You and your friends must not be there, nor can anyone know where you've gone."
"But for how long?"
"As long as necessary," Doriana said. "Make no mistake, Patriot. From now on you and the others will be fugitives, running and hiding from the very people whose lives and prosperity you will have risked your lives to protect." He lifted his eyebrows. "If you aren't strong enough to pay that price, now is the time to renounce your oath."
Patriot straightened up, the resolve in his face visibly hardening. "We do what is necessary for our guild and our people," he said firmly. "We will pay the price for all."
"Then you are a Brolf of high honor indeed," Doriana said gravely. For some people the prospect of life on the run would be grounds to take a second, harder look at what they were doing. But for Patriot and his friends, such a potentially bleak future merely added to the perceived nobility and glamour of their insane plot.
Which was why Doriana had recruited them for this mission in the first place. Stupid, angry, and malleable, they'd been the perfect pawns for his plan. The deed would be done, and Doriana himself long gone, before any of them realized what had actually happened. If indeed they ever did. "Then here and now we stand together on the path to glory and destiny," he continued. "By tomorrow noon these traitorous negotiations will lie crumbled in the dust of history, and the precious minerals of Barlok will be forever held in Brolf hands."
"And those who would betray us will know the cost of such betrayal," Patriot intoned solemnly. "The Brolf people arc deeply in your debt, Defender. Someday, I swear, this debt will be repaid."
"And I swear in turn that I will return to collect that payment," Doriana said, though offhand he couldn't imagine anything he was less likely to do. "I have one more small adjustment to make to the missile after the burst thrusters are in place, and then will leave to prepare my own part in this redemption of the Brolf people. Be certain you place the missile at precisely the spot w
e agreed on. Only there will it be inside the sensor shadow that guarantees it will not be spotted." And only from there, he added to himself, would the pre-programmed path take it where it had to go.
"I will," Patriot promised. "Then to our victory, Defender."
Doriana smiled. "Yes," he said softly. "To our victory."
Car'das had noted on their first approach to Thrawn's asteroid that the base itself seemed remarkably well hidden. It was only as they approached now for the second time that he found out how the commander had pulled off that particular trick.
Instead of being built on the surface, the base was inside.
Inside, in fact, down a long, twisting tunnel, a path the Springhawk's helmsman took at a far better clip than was actually necessary. "Impressive place," Car'das said aloud, trying to cover his nervousness as he watched the rocky walls shooting past. "Is this typical Chiss construction?"
"Not at all," Thrawn said, his voice sounding odd as he gazed out the bridge viewport. "Most bases are on the surface. I wanted this one to be more difficult for potential enemies to penetrate."
"Hardly an original idea," Qennto put in. His voice was casual, but Car'das could see a little tightness around his eyes as he paid close attention to the helmsman's maneuvering. "You make the approach tricky so an attacker has to come at you slowly. 'Course, that makes it just as hard to get your own ships out, but that's the price you pay."
"There are ways of minimizing that particular problem," Thrawn told him. "At the moment, the Chiss Defense Fleet is working with this same concept with another base, on a much larger and more sophisticated scale than this. Interesting."
"What?" Car'das asked.
"That pattern of colored lights woven between the approach markers," Thrawn said, pointing to the wall just ahead. "It indicates the presence of visitors."
"Is that good or bad?" Maris asked.
Thrawn shrugged. "That depends on who the visitors are."
Three minutes later they came around a final curve and the tunnel opened up into a large cavern. At the far side, the rock face was alive with the glinting lights of ranging markers and viewports, with eight ships nestled up against various docking stations. Five were the Chiss fighters Car'das had already seen in action, two were small transport-style shuttles, and the eighth was a cruiser about the size of the Springhawk. Unlike the smoothly contoured military ships, though, this one was all planes and corners and sharply defined angles. "Ah," Thrawn said. "Our guests are from the Fifth Ruling Family."