Shattered Knight

by Tim Radley

KoTOR: Eight months on from the fall of the Star Forge the expected peace has not come to the Republic. The news of Revan's return has become a source of schism and conflict within the galaxy, and Revan himself has his own demons to face.

12. Webs Within Webs

12. Webs Within Webs

"Hmm. In the light of this latest news, Jedi Bastila's decision to follow her own conscience, unfortunately, begins to look even more regrettable."

"Regrettable?" Jedi Master Mida Tapawan's voice rose to querulous pitch. "I would be tempted to use far stronger terms than that. The consequences of her defiance could end up being disastrous." Pale and colourless, the translucent image of her head and shoulders flickered in the gloom. "If the senate think we are going to renege . . ."

Morrigance arranged the expression on her fake, holographic face into an indulgent smile. "Oh come now, Mida dear. Don't you remember what it's like to be young? All that overwhelming energy and impulsiveness, channelling itself as embarrassingly naïve idealism and conviction. Let's try not to be too harsh here."

Mida Tapawan grumbled something quietly that didn't carry across the comm. link.

"Besides," Morrigance continued in the same light, indulgent tone. "It is ever the way with those who have spent any length of time around Revan, is it not? They develop a rebellious and questioning steak, and no longer feel quite so beholden to their masters. This latest incarnation does not seem so much changed from the old one, at least insofar as the passions he ignites in those around him."

Again, Mida muttered something that didn't fully carry, although the words " . . . ignite him . . ." were definitely in there. "And so decisions taken in desperation and haste inevitably have dire consequences that come home to roost."

Morrigance nodded slowly. "They are roosting now, certainly. Yes, you have made your thoughts on the former Council's previous actions in regard to Revan quite clear. I do not necessarily disagree, but it a decision that has gone from us now." Her holographic face took on a musing look. "As to the matter in hand, and Bastila Shan, might I recommend that you despatch a pair of Jedi to Hoth, to bring about her recall in person? I suspect that she would find it much harder to remain . . . disobedient face to face." She made a waving gesture. "And yes, I am all too aware of how overstretched we all are. But in the current circumstances . . .. You rightly point out the urgency here."

"I will take care of it, Master Corva-Dey." Mida Tapawan sighed, the exhalation freighted with weary tension.

"I told you," she said, gently but firmly. "It's Leandra, please. There are places where formality is entirely appropriate, but a private conversation between friends is not one of them."

"As you say . . . Leandra."

"Now, I'm sorry to break off our discussion so abruptly, but unfortunately other matters call out for my attention. I pray we will get the chance to converse in less strained circumstances soon."

And with that, Morrigance cut the link.

For a moment, she simply sat there, motionless, in a dim curtained-off reading cubicle at the rear of the Jedi Archives on Coruscant. There were, she reflected, useful idiots on both sides of the divide, Sith and Jedi alike. The Jedi ones tended to be more tedious in their sanctimony, but somewhat less egotistically self-regarding.

There was also significantly less chance of spontaneously sprouting an assassin's dagger between her shoulder blades. That, she had to admit, held a certain refreshing quality.

Beyond the reading cubicle, she heard footsteps – soft-soled shoes moving quietly. After a second or so listening, she dismissed them from her mind. They were simply those of a junior Padawan archivist, and their quiet stealth was nothing more sinister than a desire not to disturb the great library's sanctity with unnecessary noise. She turned her attention back to the Jedi Holocron in front of her, carefully resuming her work of teasing out its secrets and then subtly altering them.

Pale winter sunlight shone down on the GreatValley of the Dark Lords, a biting wind whistling thinly and carrying traces of grit stirred up from the ongoing excavations. It sent her hair whipping out behind her in streamers, her cheeks and ears having gone all but numb in the long walk down the valley's length.

She squinted against the brightness.

He was standing about a hundred metres ahead of her at the top of a slight rise near the valley's head. As always when in public, he was wearing the full, all-concealing regalia, the long black robes stirring around his body in the wind.

He didn't look round at her approach, but she knew he was fully aware of her, able to sense his alertness. Even when she stepped up to stand at his side, he did nothing to acknowledge her presence.

Eventually, she cleared her throat. "I get the impression that Master Uthar is a touch put out by having the start of excavations delayed this morning."

There was a hollow answering chuckle. The mask made everything issuing from it sound hollower and deeper, adding a timbre that wasn't entirely human. "I'm sure the esteemed Uthar Wynn will manage to contain his annoyance for the time being."

It wasn't just his voice that was different. The robes and mask are Darth Revan. He is a convenient shell I sometimes don. The words he'd spoken when she'd taken her first steps towards this position. Back then, she'd thought he was joking.

Not now.

At what point did a persona stop being a persona, and start being the real person? What if it was Darth Revan who enjoyed stepping back and becoming Xavious occasionally, rather than the other way round? The idea made her shudder.

"I think Uthar knows you're here," she said, voice calm and controlled. "The shutdown order could only have come from yourself or Malak. I suspect the main cause of his being put out is that you didn't stop by and visit."

"He'll get over it. He's a Sith Master of high standing. Not someone's senile old granny whose grandchildren have neglected to visit for tea."

She simply nodded. All of which was slightly beside the point, and ducking the issue of why this meeting was taking place. "I have the holocron."

"Excellent." There was a pause just long enough to make her start to feel uncomfortable. Then, "Did you examine it?"

She hesitated. "You didn't instruct me not to. I considered carefully, and decided that it would be better if I determined that the information we wanted was actually on it before bringing it to you."

There was another hollow, strangely echoing chuckle. "Not everything is a test, Morrigance. You have graduated well beyond the point where I any longer feel that particular need."

Then why are we here, in the Valley of the Dark Lords, if not to test me?

"And does it?"

"My Lord?" She blinked, momentarily off guard.

"Contain the information we want concerning the Flying Kuat." A black gloved hand waved in negation. "No, don't answer. We would not be here now if it didn't, would we? Might I take a look?"

The holocron was a small cube, ten centimetres along each side. It looked to be constructed from various rectangles of differently shaded, smoky crystal – aesthetically interesting, but not overtly remarkable. She handed it to him.

He was able to activate it almost instantly. Earlier on, it had taken her close on an hour to get even that far.

All he did was quickly scan through the indices, occasionally pulling something or other up to look at, seemingly at random, before shutting the whole thing down again. In total, he spent at most two minutes examining it, before handing it back to her.

She looked at him, somewhat perplexed.

"You should keep it. I would recommend you study it, but that is down to you."

"You would recommend I study it," she repeated.

"Indeed. Jedi Master Vrook may have become near-terminally hidebound and cautious of late, but as a slightly younger man, he was not without insight and even wisdom. And his personal collection of acquired lore, Jedi and otherwise, is second to none that I know of." He turned to look at her. Or rather, the mask looked at her. It was difficult to imagine anything as mundane as a human face lurking behind it. "How is Master Vrook, by the way?"

Did I kill him, you mean. "As of yet, I doubt he's even aware of his precious holocron's absence. Judging from where he kept it, he hadn't looked at it in some time."

"Good. I have plenty of weapons at my disposal that can accomplish tasks through bloodshed and violence."

And is that what I am to you? Another weapon at your disposal? "I'm not aware of too many Sith Masters who would advocate the close study of Jedi texts."

"Then they are idiots." He paused tilting his head in a manner that suggested he was listening to something on the wind. "There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

"Part of the Jedi Code," she noted neutrally.

"And part of it that holds true, regardless of its source. Even if the Jedi are too blind and steeped in hypocrisy to pay their own commandment more than lip service." After a period of silence, he added, surprisingly light and causal, "Have you heard the proverb of the six blind men and the Ortuga?"

The wind chose that moment to gust, whistling to particularly shrill intensity and forcing her to flinch aside from the dust and grit it carried. "I'm not even sure what an Ortuga is," she said dryly.

Another hollow laugh. "Which somewhat militates against the usefulness of the proverb." He continued after a second or so, nevertheless. "An Ortuga is a creature from the homeworld of the Ortolans – an ancestor species they say. It is a large herbivorous species, with large tusks, thick, pillar-like legs, a very long and prominent proboscis, and big, vaguely fan-shaped ears. The point of the proverb being that each of the six blind men was asked to feel a different portion of the Ortuga, and each, in isolation identified the beast as a totally different thing. A rope, a snake, a spear, a fan, a wall, a tree-trunk. If they had combined their knowledge, they might have pieced together their partial view to identify the whole creature, but they didn't, each one stubbornly clinging to their own isolated perspective."

"Interesting."

"You don't have to humour me, Morrigance. My ego has not yet become quite so fragile that I need pretty girls simpering in agreement."

"Humouring the boss is always a good survival mechanism, I've found." Especially one so dangerous and difficult to predict as he was. "You're saying that the Jedi and Sith are like two of the blind men."

"Each clinging onto an ear of the elephant and stubbornly insisting they see the whole picture." He shook his head slowly. "Darkside and lightside. They are both parts of the same thing. Two sides of a coin, I've heard said, but that is not right. Rather, tiny extremities of a vastly greater whole, which is neither one nor the other. Claiming to know the will of the force when all either side listens to and perceives are tiny polar extremes. Fools, equally."

"And you know better? You're able to see the whole of the beast they are blind to?" She kept her tone very carefully neutral. Something about the conversation was disquieting her intensely.

He turned to look at her again. If he was intimidating without the mask and robes, then in them he was something altogether different entirely. Particularly in this place of all places. Dark lord indeed.

Finally, he inclined his head. An acknowledgement, she thought, struggling not to let out a pent up breath of relief.

"Perhaps I am just a third blind man. But if I am, I'm at least a blind man who allows himself to perceive and encompass both of their viewpoints, and acknowledge there is something more."

The disquiet redoubled, the intensity she felt from him making something inside her squirm.

Then, to her profound relief, his gaze moved on from her. He pointed to each of the four corners of the valley in turn. "Naga Sadow, Marka Ragnos, Tulak Hord. And there, still being excavated, Ajunta Pall. There are other tombs, all along the walls, but those are the four most prominent, and the only ones to which we've cleared access. Naga Sadow's contains the Rakatan star map, and is currently sealed. But you should visit the others before Uthar resumes his digging. Taken together with what's on the holocron, I think you'll find it . . . interesting."

Abruptly, he started to walk past her, back down the valley. The conversation was over.

It was thought more than anything, floating just beneath the surface. Somehow, he seemed to reach down, past her defences and startle her into speaking. "And in the future, will there one day be a Tomb of Xavious Revan, standing alongside these others?"

His laughter this time was loud and boisterous, seemingly good humoured. "I think, by the time I have finished, both sides will wish to disown me equally."

The quiet beeping of her personal communicator dragged her attention back to the present. The holocron sat on the desk in front of, barely touched. For a few seconds, she let the communicator carry on beeping as she regathered her thoughts.

"Yes, what is it?"

It was one of her agents. One who would not contact her like this in normal circumstances. "My apologies . . ."

"Don't apologise. Tell me what I need to know."

"It's Senator Walder."

She recognised the name. One of those she'd been watching. One of them. A tiny frissance of excitement tickled her. It didn't show in the holographic face she still had switched on. "And?"

"He wants you get in touch with him at the first available opportunity. 'To discuss a matter of the utmost delicacy and urgency,' was how he put it."

"And he came through you in order to demonstrate how much he knows about us, and how much he is in control of the situation." The words held a dry, sardonic slant. "He left a number, of course."

"Of course."

She memorised it.

"He also stated that he hoped you would address the matter with some haste, in order to ensure 'regrettable complications' didn't develop."

Morrigance recognised a threat when she heard it – even a mealy mouthed and oblique one. She severed the communication link.

-s-s-

Consciousness returned slowly. Carth gradually became aware that someone was leaning over him, saying his name, but it was difficult to stir himself into any kind of action. All he really wanted to do was drift off and let the world float away again. So much easier that way . . .

"Damn it, Carth. Don't do this to me."

Abruptly, something incredibly bright was being shone directly into his eyes from close range, and he was yanked, metaphorically kicking and screaming, back to reality. His face twisted hard to one side, and he raised a hand in a vain attempt to block out the glare. "Get that bloody thing out of my face, Witnik." He added a few choice oaths for good measure.

"Ah, so sleeping beauty finally awakens."

Carth forced himself to sit up, grimacing. His head was thumping steadily and his mouth tasted how he imagined the inside of the ship's head might. He hadn't been properly hung over in a long time. Not since he'd given up trying to finding oblivion in a bottle following Morgana's death, when he'd realised it was making the memories worse, not better. This was pretty much the sensation he remembered though. Stifling a groan, he fumbled for the water bottle beside the bed.

Then he realised that Witnik had called him Carth. He squinted at the Sullustan sourly. "I thought I told you not to call me that. I can't afford Yolanda finding out . . ."

"You don't have to worry about Yolanda overhearing just now."

Carth was about to emphasise the point more emphatically, when he noted the tilt of Witnik's ears. Something was up. He extended his senses out further and quickly concluded that they'd landed somewhere. The gravity he felt was real, planetary rather than the subtle unevenness of the ship's own artificially generated pull. And everything was quiet. Quieter than if they'd been running, even on minimal power.

"What happened?" The sinking feeling was rapidly overriding the headache.

"She's gone."

"Yolanda?"

"Wow, you're quick today. The rest's done you good, I see." There was an exasperated note to Witnik's voice.

Carth closed his eyes, wincing. At least the Catcher hadn't caught up with them, so it wasn't quite a worst-case scenario. "Just the facts will do for the moment, if it's all the same."

"Fine." The Sullustan made a sniffing noise. "She broke into your locker and took your gun. Then she broke into my workshop and took the box. Then she walked out."

"And you let her?" Carth flinched as soon as the words were out, realising how they sounded.

"After she got your gun? Too damn right I let her."

"Sorry, sorry. That was uncalled for." He shook his head. It was himself he was mad at. He should have seen this coming, but with the Catcher so prominent in his thoughts – in every single respect – he'd stopped thinking of Yolanda as a potential threat in her own right. "Sorry I dragged you into this crap. Damn it, I thought she'd . . ." Another headshake and he trailed off. Done was done. "How long ago?"

"Twenty minutes. You were right about putting yourself way under Carth. I've had a devil of a time getting you to wake up."

He grunted, standing up and managing not to stagger as he made his way over to the sink. There he splashed some water on his face, to little overall effect, before locating his battered old orange jacket and snatching it up. "Where are we?"

Witnik looked wary. "You told me not to tell you that."

"I'd imagine I'm going to find out anyway, as soon as I step off this ship. Besides, I think this is where we part ways." He held up a hand to forestall the protest he knew was coming. "Think about it for a moment, Witnik. Thanks for what you've done. I owe you big time, and I'll try to pay you back when I can. But really. You need to get out of here as soon as you can."

After holding Carth's gaze for several seconds, Witnik finally said, "Fondor. Even if this Catcher 'hears' that right now, you've still got at least a twelve hour start before he can show up in person."

Carth nodded, going through what he knew about Fondor in his head. It wasn't much, all told. "You mentioned that you knew people who might be able to crack that box. Any of them here?" It was a thin hope.

Which rapidly withered away to nothing as Witnik signalled the negative. "You're sure that's what she's going to do? She won't try to put some distance between the two of you first?"

"She risked her life to get hold of it on Berchest. Whatever's in there, it's important. I'm willing to bet opening it is her first priority now." If it wasn't, he had to admit he probably wasn't going to be catching up to her. She was undoubtedly far more adept at evading a pursuit than he would be at mounting one.

"Torval Heida is the local Exchange boss, from what I remember. Least, he was two years ago. If there's anyone here who can do the job, one of his men is your best bet for pointing you in the right direction."

Carth hid his grimace. The Exchange. Not his favourite people in the galaxy, but the saying about beggars and choosers came to mind. "Thanks, Witnik. Now, you're going to promise me: as soon as I'm off the ship, you're asking for an exit lane, firing up, and getting out of here. Right?"

"Right." There was a notable lack of enthusiasm in the Sullustan's voice, but he eventually did give way. "Be careful out there, Carth. When I was coming in to land, I got the impression that Fondor is a bit of mess right now."

-s-s-

Yuthura watched the male Twi'lek closely.

He'd emerged from Seboba the Hutt's personal slave harem. If he was a slave himself, he was a particularly privileged one, richly clothed in dark purple silks and weighed down by more ostentatiously expensive and showy jewellery than the bounds of good taste could ever remotely justify. Strong blue head tails were arranged decorously over his silk-clad shoulders, oiled and glossy. The scents he wore reached her nostrils even from a distance of nearly ten metres away, like his jewellery obviously expensive, but hideously over done.

All he had to do was turn his head slightly to the right and he would see her. Except she was reaching out through the force to ensure that didn't happen, his mind suddenly having absolutely no curiosity at all about anything in this particular direction.

Definitely not a slave, she decided.

Above even his attire, his stance made that clear – arrogant and assured. As she watched, he gestured to a pair of young Hutts who'd apparently managed to get themselves relegated to guard duty, summoning them across to him. Yuthura shrank back further into her hiding place.

The young Hutts were a lot thinner than their elder brethren and fully mobile – chubby pythons rather than obese toad-cum-slugs.

The Twi'lek was clearly the one in command. Young Hutts, Yuthura knew, typically had a status barely higher than that of slaves, open target for the abuses of their elders. Of course, unlike slaves, young Hutt's eventually lived to return the abuses they suffered onto the heads of the next generation once they were old and fat enough.

Seboba's councillor, she inferred from the tone of the conversation. He would be someone of high standing within the Exchange in his own right, responsible for advising Seboba in matters of trade, and ensuring that the Hutt's household was run smoothly. Such positions always went to alien species, simply because Hutts knew that anyone of their own kind given such a position would automatically be plotting treachery.

The fact he was a Twi'lek didn't surprise her. She had encountered his ilk before on Sleheyron. She'd been sold into slavery in the first place by men like him.

Abruptly she came to the decision: to grab him – to use him.

There were probably more Twi'lek females in slavery throughout the galaxy than there were slaves of any other single species. Yet no slavers ever raided Ryloth. Instead, the slave trade had become a home-grown industry, girls – and it was nearly exclusively girls – taken by opportunistic businessmen, purchased or otherwise prised from there families, or in increasing numbers, explicitly bred for the purpose. There they were raised and trained to be perfect pleasure slaves, no longer people but commodities to be bought and sold, purely for the purposes of lining their owners' pockets.

Although technically illegal, it was in reality one of Ryloth's biggest exports, too many in authority willing to be bribed into turning a blind eye.

If there was one aspect of the slave trade that made her blood boil more than the brutally systematic cruelties of the Hutts, it was this: that the problem was self-inflicted, fed by the greed of her own people. Millions suffered horribly, and their brethren not only turned a blind eye, they were complicit in it.

The anger wouldn't fade. Not when confronted with it in such blatant and close proximity. The best she could do was hold it tight, contained beneath the surface.

He dismissed the two Hutts and started walking briskly. She followed, HK-47 a silent shadow at her back.

At the last moment, he apparently sensed her, starting to turn around. Instantly she punched straight through his mental defences, hard and brutal, switching off his reactions for the fraction of a second necessary to grab him and yank him, unresisting through a nearby doorway into the storage room beyond.

As she held him up against a wall, he blinked dazedly. He was obviously struggling to work out what had just happened. His gaze settled on her face, focusing slowly.

In an instant confusion was replaced by cold hauteur. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded in Twi'lecki. His head tails assumed a posture of contemptuous superiority.

She simply held his gaze, unspeaking, baring sharp white teeth.

He tried to break her grip, but although he had at least twenty kilograms of weight advantage and topped her by several centimetres, she was in far superior physical condition to him and held him easily. "Unhand me at once." His tone was still peremptory, but this time she could sense disquiet building. His gaze flicked over her shoulder to HK, obviously unable to reconcile the droid with his initial assumptions of the situation.

Her silence continued, waiting for him to catch on.

"I'm waiting for an explanation, slave."

And so you damn yourself with your own words.

"You know that I can have the lekku yanked from your head, the skin flayed from your still whimpering flesh, if I so desire it." Barely contained fury rose to a quivering pitch in his voice.

"Look more closely," she suggested quietly. It had been a long time since she'd conversed in her people's own language

He did. His jaw clamped shut. "Your tattoos. They're not . . ."

"They're Sith. This one here, for example, is sometimes known as the Eye of Ragnos. Only a force-adept of ruthlessness and power may wear it."

She watched his face crumble and his head tails wilt. To his credit, he managed to re-impose a veneer of composure with remarkable rapidity. It was distinctly brittle though. "What do you want?"

To yank the life from your body and watch you suffer, gasping like a landed fish as you die. The thought was startling in its vehement lucidity. She had to grit her teeth. Fortunately, it looked like a snarl.

There is no emotion, there is peace.

Empty mantra. All the peace in the universe did not undo the suffering people like this one had caused – did not make it better, or right. And there clearly was emotion – vast, black, overwhelming tides of it.

There is emotion, but peace is stronger than that emotion. It allows you to be emotion's master, rather than to be mastered by it.

Then let it be done without emotion, the inner voice retorted. Let it be done with perfect, icy calm and tranquillity.

What do you want? His question, internally repeated, but with entirely different meaning.

This? She managed to unclamp her jaw slightly, and draw breath. Her grip on him had tightened to the point where she was in danger of strangling him. His eyes were wide, filled with terror and recognition of his own death.

"You're going to take me to Seboba." Her voice was mild. "You're going to get me through all the layers of guards and security systems, and if I sense even the slightest treacherous thought in here . . ." She made another, hard stabbing thrust through his mental defences, so that no mater how force-insensitive he was, he couldn't help but feel it and take the point. ". . . I will switch on every single pain receptor in your body and leave you like that." Entirely beyond her capabilities, but given the reputation of the Sith, he wouldn't know that. "You'll probably only last an hour or two at most, before your heart gives out, but each and every second of that time will seem like its own personal little eternity. Your sanity will be entirely gone, long before the end."

He whetted his lips. "If I take you to Seboba, he'll have me killed."

She smiled and nodded. "Yes, it's a dilemma, isn't it? Seboba can be a thoroughly cruel and ruthless master, can't he? And any action that he might regard as a betrayal . . .. I am so glad I'm not stuck in your position right now."

"Please . . ."

"Are you begging me for mercy?" Her voice was suddenly sub-arctic.

After absorbing the look in her eyes, he shook his head. "I . . . I know who you are. You're Yuthura Ban."

Just for a moment that left her taken aback. She knew all about Seboba, but she would have been willing to bet that she didn't even register in his universe.

But then, she realised, she was famous, wasn't she? Tamar's words from before they'd visited Darth Auza came back. As far as most of the galaxy is concerned, you're Darth Revan's new apprentice. You helped destroy the Jedi council. Of course he would know who she was.

When they'd visited Auza, playing on that, she'd been pretending to be a Sith. Now . . . from the anger and hate inside, she wasn't sure she was pretending any more. She suppressed a shudder at the realisation, easing her grip on the Twi'lek just slightly – drawing back.

Was everything that had happened during these past few months meaningless – for nothing?

Harshly, she pushed that doubt away. Now wasn't the time for it.

"Suggestion: Perhaps I could torture this snivelling meatbag for a time?" The eagerness in HK's tone was palpable. "I am most efficient, and I am sure he would be much more cooperative by the time I had finished." There was a pause that had an almost musing quality to it. "Either that, or dead. But that is most unlikely, I assure you."

The Twi'lek's gaze darted past her shoulder.

"This is HK-47," Yuthura noted. "Darth Revan's personal assassin droid. As you can see, it's certainly very . . . enthusiastic. Perhaps the two of you would like to get more closely acquainted?"

Briefly, the Twi'lek's eyes widened. Then he nodded quickly. "I . . . I'll take you to Seboba."

-s-s-

Zaalbar's roar when he laid eyes on Mission was so loud, even after the extended racket of blaster fire and explosions that had preceded it, that it made Tamar wince. Quickly the girl was almost buried beneath a couple of hundred kilos of Wookiee.

"Hey there, Big Zee," she sounded like she was crying. "I was worried about you too. I saw you . . . I . . ." The rest was muffled from Tamar's hearing, before rising again a few seconds later. "Zee, just what have you been doing to your coat?" An exasperated tutting noise. "Gone for five minutes and . . . I hate to be blunt here, but you're a mess. You stink of smoke. I mean really stink of it. And as for the tangles – I think it's going to take weeks to get all of them straightened out . . ."

Zaalbar's mournful sounding protest managed to draw a fractional smile, but it faded quickly. Although everything was quiet for the moment, Tamar knew it would be no more than a temporary respite. Bodies were slumped against the walls like discarded ragdolls and the air stank of cauterised flesh, smoke and the ionised reek of intense blaster fire.

His gaze locked with Juhani's, and they shared a small nod of greeting.

"Trouble seems to have a knack of attaching itself to your coattails," she murmured as the two of them fell into step.

Something of an understatement there. "Not through choice, I assure you."

"Still, it does my heart glad to see Mission safe and well. I'd thought . . ." she trailed off, before shaking her head emphatically. "No, that is entirely irrelevant now."

"I have to confess it's something of a surprise to find you here," Tamar murmured. "But definitely a most welcome one. You are well?"

Juhani smiled. Tamar was vaguely, but uncomfortably, aware of Belaya watching them, hawk-like, from off to one side. "After experiencing Jolee's piloting skills on the way in, I don't think there is anything left in this galaxy that can puncture my serenity."

"I heard that, girl."

There was no sign of any more of Seboba's troops, even when he extended his senses deeper into the ship. That didn't do anything to reassure him though, and he still kept his lightsaber poised at the ready. He noted that both Belaya and Juhani did the same. He didn't for a moment believe they'd managed to take all Seboba had to throw at them.

The main question in his mind was whether the Hutt was simply regrouping his forces, ready to renew their onslaught somewhere further ahead, or there was some other – and potentially more deadly – kind of trap waiting for them.

"Not even a hello for the old man, then?"

Tamar glanced at Jolee sidelong. "You know that saying about absence making the heart grow fonder? Complete crap, isn't it."

"Yuthura not with you?" he asked, voice low, as Tamar came alongside him.

"We were separated." Tamar kept his tone flat and business-like, feelings carefully buried. "There was an explosion. The corridor collapsed and we ended up on opposite sides. She's heading for the upper decks, same as we are."

"You're worried about her," he said simply.

He didn't answer right away – kept on leading the advance deeper into the Rancorous. "She's just about the most capable and resourceful person I know."

"That wasn't an answer. Now, was it?"

"Maybe not." The lights flickered intermittently, the tangled corridors of the Hutt ship reminding uncomfortably of the bowels of a great beast. "But I learned that from the undisputed master. Didn't I, old man?"

Jolee made a non-committal noise.

"HK's with her, anyway."

"And that makes you more, or less worried does it?"

If he was honest, probably more. They reached the main turbolift juncture for this part of the ship, and Tamar signalled a halt. "Can you sense anyone at all in the vicinity, apart from us?"

After a pause of several seconds, Jolee shook his head. A glance across at Juhani, and she too indicated the negative. Which made the three of them.

The turbolifts were too dangerous, he decided abruptly. Too obvious a place to spring a trap. He stepped past them, igniting his lightsaber and slicing through a service panel in a pair of neat, criss-cross strokes. As the sundered metal fell away, he caught it with his will, lowering it quietly to the floor before it could make a clang. It revealed a dark, narrow shaft with a metal ladder leading up and down, farther in both directions than light permitted the eye to see.

"I wasn't really meaning in a physical sense," Jolee continued, just loud enough for him to hear, not apparently content simply to let the matter drop. "We've had a few conversations recently, Yuthura and I. She told me a thing or two about her past. I'd imagine it must be hard, being confronted with . . . those memories again. No matter what resolutions she thinks she's come to with herself."

Tamar shone a flashlight beam into the service shaft. Even that didn't manage to illuminate the shaft's top, but it did at least reveal other exits, spaced at regular intervals. "Of course I'm worried," he said finally; quietly. He'd been able to feel the tension in her since they got here – the rising turmoil. "But that's not what you're getting at, is it old man? Why don't you just come out and say what you mean? It's me who's got you worried. Is my mind focussed properly on the job?"

He glanced back in time to see Jolee shrug. "Oh, I am concerned about her too. I like her, you know. Would hate to see any harm come to her. She kind of reminds me of . . ." An abrupt cough, and he cut himself off. "Well, you don't want to here me babbling about that just now, do you?"

Tamar didn't say anything. He leant further into the shaft, yanking on one of the rungs to ensure it could take his, and more importantly, Zaalbar's weight. Like everything in the Rancorous, it looked rather the worse for wear. "Is there a point here?"

"Well, it's not like you've been going out of the way to keep it secret, is it? I mean, you'd have checked out the soundproofing on your cabin a bit more thoroughly if you were. Thud-thud-thud. Creak-creak-creak. Half the bloody night. Youthful stamina's all very well and good, but did you ever consider that people in the next cabin might be trying to sleep?"

Okay, deep breath. Tamar turned around slowly. "What are you all of a sudden? My bloody father or something?"

Jolee winced. "By the force, I hope not. I don't think even I've done anything to deserve a penance quite that harsh."

"I don't think this is the appropriate time for this conversation, do you?" he said at last. "To be honest, I can't think of any time between now and the end of the universe that's a remotely appropriate time for this conversation."

After looking him in the eye, Jolee finally nodded. "So you have everything under control?"

Tamar grunted, exasperation and annoyance together. "Look, I know the score here." His voice was very quiet, but intense. "What's between me and Yuthura . . . it doesn't matter. It changes nothing that matters, and in the scheme of things, no one cares. There're precisely two people in this galaxy it's remotely important to, and on any larger scale than that it's blindingly irrelevant. It won't get in the way. It won't stop me paying attention to what I need to."

"Wow. That's . . . cold. Cynical, I might even be tempted to say."

"So you disagree then?"

Jolee seemed slightly taken aback. After a moment, he shook his head and muttered, almost sub-audible. "And they say romance is dead." Then, more loudly. "It makes you angry though, doesn't it? You think it should matter, even when you tell yourself it doesn't."

"Hey, you guys. Do you think we could get a move on?" Mission's voice came from somewhere behind them. "I can feel myself aging here."

Tamar shot Jolee one last long, level look. "You know, sometimes, I hate you old man." Then, with a gesture, he indicated the service shaft. "Well, like Mission so rightly says, are we going to stand around here all day chatting, or are we going to get a move on? Age before beauty is, I think, traditional."

"Now I'm confused. I've got you beat on both of those, so which is it?" But he stepped past, looking at the ladder somewhat gingerly, before clambering on. "This is all some kind of vicious payback for imagined slights, isn't it?"

"What are you blathering about now?"

"Oh, it's all right for you. You don't have to worry about your joints burning hotter than the surface of Nkllon after a climb like that."

"You're welcome to use the lift if you like. Act as a decoy. Though I can't imagine they'll find your scrawny ass the most attractive bait imaginable . . ."

"You're sure the lift's a trap then?" Juhani asked quietly from by his side. Tamar wondered briefly how much of the conversation she'd overheard. She would be far too polite to say.

"If I had to deal with the problem of a group of Jedi let loose on my ship, cutting through all the men I sent against them with apparent ease, then believe me, it would be a trap."

With a heavy sigh, and grumbling all the way, Jolee began to climb. Tamar got onto the ladder behind him and moved to follow.

A few seconds latter, from somewhere high above, came a series of muffled controlled explosions.

-s-s-

As meetings went, this one certainly had the unusual going for it, even in Morrigance's considerable experience.

It wasn't, of course, a meeting in person.

Senator Walder had been neither stupid, nor overconfident enough to let himself get involved in something like that. Instead, when she'd contacted the number her agent had passed on, she'd been directed to pick up a small package.

The package had turned out to contain a visor, along with instructions that, in order, to open communications, she should go to a secure location and put it on. Over an hour of meticulous scanning had revealed no traces of explosives, toxins, trackers, or devices such as neural disruptors, so – out of curiosity – she had finally done as the instructions suggested.

Immediately she'd found herself, to all appearances, transported from the empty apartment to an entirely different location.

Careful inspection had determined that it was – or appeared to be, at least – a blimp.

Virtually speaking, she was standing in a broad gondola slung underneath it, which appeared to combine the functions of luxurious restaurant, ballroom and viewing platform. The expansive windows and transparisteel floor gave spectacular views of the tops of Coruscant's tallest skyscrapers, poking through the dull grey cloud cover. She could pick out the spires of the massive senate complex in the near distance, including the imposing rotunda of the senate archives. Further away, she could just barely discern the very peak of the grand Jedi temple.

"A spectacular view, is it not?" a smooth, mellow sounding voice intoned from directly behind her. "When I'm feeling particularly jaded I like to come up here and simply stand and watch the world go by. I find it helps restore a measure of my faith in the galaxy at large, and the Republic in particular."

For about a microsecond annoyance flared, before she strangled it back again. Of course she wouldn't have any force sense of her surroundings, since she was there only through the illusion created by the visor. That was the entire point of setting up the meeting like this – something that gave the illusion of face-to-face contact, without putting a non-force user at a disadvantage. "I assume that none of this is real – just computer generated images being fed back to me."

"On the contrary. If you happened to be inside one of the skyscrapers you see below us, then you could look out of your window and see us, high above."

She made a soft, non-committal sound. Turning around, she saw the familiar figure that the Senator presented to the world. A tall, thin gentleman who was the epitome of distinguished refinement, albeit drawn in rather grey and dreary hues – hair, clothing and even strangely colourless skin included.

"And you are personally here, Senator?"

"No more than you are, Lady Fel." If she was supposed to be surprised by the fact that he knew her name, he was in for a disappointment. "The visor you're wearing connects you to the sensory components of a specially constructed droid."

He steered her gaze sideways with a gesture to a mirror behind the bar. There she saw her reflection for the first time – a near featureless, androgynous humanoid construction of what looked like flesh-coloured plastic. It looked oddly naked and vulnerable, the effect only magnified by the impressive opulence of the surroundings.

"You can change the appearance to whatever you wish, within reason. Beneath this surface of perception I'm physically nothing more than an identical droid to you."

Morrigance chose to leave herself as the androgynous mannequin, for all its slight ridiculousness. Transforming into anything else risked inadvertently giving away something about herself that she didn't want to. "So, Senator, is this how the Genoharadan typically conduct their meetings? I suppose it's a useful method for maintaining anonymity between members."

Without any noticeable pause, Senator Walder chuckled. It managed to sound natural and unforced. "You are well informed. From what I have observed of you in recent weeks, I hardly expected less."

She didn't say anything in response to that, so he continued. "In many ways, your knowledge of us makes things easier. It saves time on tedious explanations." His smile had an air of self-satisfaction that she would have loved to strip away.

"So, what is it I can do for the secret rulers of the galaxy?" Her voice held a distinctly acidic edge, which she made no attempt to hide. "I have to say, I feel honoured."

"Please. Those are simply tales told by the credulous and paranoid, with no grain of truth to them." His tone remained light, but there was a fractional tightness about his eyes. He was obviously capable of detecting when he was being mocked. "I would have thought that someone like you would have known better."

"Someone like me?"

"A Sith Lord of power and subtlety. Former spymaster of Darth Revan. Former right hand of the late Drevon Rae."

If she hadn't had a very good idea where that information had come from, she reflected, she might have found it slightly more disturbing. "You've done your homework, I see. Now, I hate to be so blunt and unsubtle, but what do you want?"

Another indulgent chuckle, which this time fell squarely into the realms of the irritating. "We have been watching your activities of late with some fascination, Lady Fel. You've certainly been creating quite the stir."

Or to translate, you noticed me two weeks ago, when I let you notice me, and have been scrabbling around like headless chickens trying to work out how to respond ever since. She got the impression that, even compared with dealing with the various Sith factions, this was going to prove circuitous. "Oh?"

"The assassination of the Jedi Council was certainly a bold move, and pinning it on Revan was inspired – if slightly fortuitous, and far from watertight. Your manipulations of the senate and Jedi Order since then have certainly been amusing to watch too – despite their relative crudeness."

She decided that, on reflection, she had no patience for this. "And now of course, I'm treading on your toes; annoyingly disrupting your own intricate and carefully spun schemes, and generally proving myself an inconvenience to the order of things you are so careful to maintain."

The Senator inclined his head with a fractional smile. "Well, since we are being blunt here. Our leaders . . ."

"The Overseers?"

"Our leaders, feel you are drawing unwanted attention in our direction, and that – lacking our knowledge of the inner workings of the Republic drawn from long centuries of experience – you are not being nearly so clever and subtle as you think."

"Is that so?" She wondered if any of those leaders realised that the attention she was drawing their way, might be deliberate. A join the dots puzzle, created for the benefit of those who were willing to look beyond the idea that Revan was the source of all that was evil and wrong in the galaxy – and there were a few of those out there even now, some of increasing persistence. The Genoharadan, with all their mystery and mystique, made such ideal culprits.

But no, in the mythology that they'd so painstakingly created, the Genoharadan were the spiders at the centre of the ultimate, underpinning web. They were the master conspirators and manipulators, controlling every action. The very idea would be ludicrous.

"It is." There were no more smiles. "I would recommend you take that concern seriously."

"Indeed. Tell me then, Senator: is this simply to be a cease-and-desist order, or do the people you represent have a more interesting proposal they'd like to make?"

"Well, you have proven yourself a woman of considerable talent, and our organisation is always open to the talented – should the talent be made of the right material."

"Interesting." In the sense of highly predictable.

"Of course, we would need to satisfy ourselves of certain factors before such an offer could be made. I am simply . . . testing the water, you might say."

"And if I were to prove . . . not of the right material? Or even reject your offer entirely? Hypothetically speaking, you understand."

"Hypothetically speaking? Oh, that would be most regrettable. We would have to take steps to ensure the sanctity of our interests."

"And I wouldn't want that, would I?" The sardonic tone was back. Gazing out of the windows, Morrigance noted that they were flying in slow circles. They'd just completed one full loop, right back to where they'd started.

"No you wouldn't." That was icy cold. If she'd possessed the wherewithal to smile, she would have then. "The first thing we would like to know, as a sign of good faith before we commence negotiations, is this: What is your endgame?"

"I thought," she murmured, "That you would have already figured that out."

"It is best to hear such things in your own words. To avoid misunderstandings, and establish honesty in our dealings."

She nodded. In the mirror, she saw her droid body mimic the nod exactly. "There remains a problem."

"Oh? I thought everything we'd discussed up to this point had been quite straightforward."

"The problem I have is with you."

"Me?" Senator Walder raised an eyebrow.

"Not you personally, Senator. The people you represent. When I called you the 'secret rulers of the galaxy' earlier, and you disparaged the idea, you weren't being entirely honest, were you? That is how you think of yourselves in your heart of hearts. Nothing happens in the Republic that you don't permit. No legislation passes that you don't vet. No one becomes Chancellor who you don't allow. You have fingers in every pie, and hold threads in every web. Galactic trade is yours, and a thousand thousand bounty hunters and assassins enforce your will without ever knowing who they work for. Let the Sith and the Jedi and the Mandalorians have their petty galactic wars. The turmoil makes it all the easier for you to run your manipulations and turn your profits, playing every side against the other. Let the likes of Darth Revan have their vast fleets and Starforges. They don't hold a candle to the true power that you wield, all in secret and unnoticed."

He chuckled indulgently. "Now, I would hardly go that far . . ."

"That is what you think of yourselves, though," she continued over the top of him. "Isn't it? Except, in reality, things hit one small snag."

His eyes seemed to glitter – venomous. The look was oddly familiar, despite the vastly different face. So it is you.

"Namely, it's all a fantasy, inflated by the idiotic rantings of crazed conspiracy theorists and your own self-aggrandisement. You pull your strings and indulge your petty greed and vices, but the only reason you can delude yourself into thinking that you're in control is that you don't use your so called 'power' to change anything of significance in the slightest. You're the system in microcosm, believing you're all important, but altering nothing. You're invisible to the galaxy not because of your cleverness, but because you simply do not matter. No one notices you because there is nothing to notice, and everything that happens would happen the way it does whether you existed or not."

She shook her head disparagingly. The droid shook its head in turn. "If every one of you disappeared tonight, the Republic and the galaxy at large wouldn't be changed one iota come the morning. You're all ghosts in the machine, with the emphasis on ghosts." A pause. "And I'd sooner slice my own face off than ally myself with such a pathetic group of self-deluded and irrelevant losers."

Silence dragged. The Senator seemed to be so stunned by her outburst that he'd temporarily lost his voice.

"You really are an incredibly stupid woman, aren't you?" he finally managed.

A shrug. It was strangely fascinating watching her mannequin-self exactly duplicate her gestures. "If you truly represented the will of the Genoharadan as a whole, then yes, I agree, it would fairly stupid of me to antagonise you so casually, simply for the sake of indulging my ego. But the thing is, you don't."

He stopped, staring at her as if trying to read her, but a blankly expressionless droid could give nothing away. "What are you babbling about, woman?"

"An agent of mine has been following Senator Walder for some time now, and here's the thing: he's just a front. A slightly senile old man, who should have been retired a long time ago. Nowadays he's mainly in it for the free lunches. I'm sure he'd be astonished to find out some of the things his name gets put too." Another shrug. "The perfect tool in many respects."

"Now, see here . . ."

She fixed the image of Senator Walder with a long, penetrating look, making him stumble to a halt. "So, Hulas, my old friend. How are things? It's been a long time, hasn't it? Stabbed anyone interesting in the back recently?"

After a couple of heartbeats he vanished, leaving another plain, androgynous-looking droid exactly like herself standing in front of her.

Mission accomplished, she thought dryly. The Rodian worm would now be drawn into moving against her directly, both out of cowardice, and to assuage the bruising that his ego had taken.

She took the visor off.

Knowing Hulas as she did, he would respond predictably.

-s-s-

Witnik had been right about there being 'a bit of a mess' on Fondor right now. In fact, the Sullustan had probably understated by a fair margin.

Carth ducked into another side street to avoid the mass of chanting protesters marching in the opposite direction, watching from the shadows as they passed. He could feel his heart thudding, a tight band of tension seeming to have locked in place around his chest.

There was a general strike on, entering its third day, and the planet had pretty much ground to a standstill.

All of the capital city's transport systems were shut down, and the streets were clogged with demonstrators. He'd been forced to navigate his way from the spaceport on foot, which in a city this size was far from ideal, and it had taken him a disconcertingly long time. Each passing moment increased his nervousness and wound the tension a little bit tighter, the twelve or so hours guaranteed start he had on the Catcher shrinking with worrying rapidity.

The various vid screens he'd seen around the streets all displayed the same thing. Fondor's main parliament buildings under siege by the crowds; clashes with police; bloodied rioters hurling plastocrete bricks. As yet, he'd managed to avoid being caught directly in the worst of it.

It was all about the proposed new orbital shipyards that were set to transform the system from a relative backwater into the most strategically important location in the colonies. After the destruction of the ship yards at Isodor by a Sith strike force led by Saul Karath, the Republic had been desperately short of shipping capacity, and the Fondorian government had seen the opportunity to boost an otherwise ailing economy.

Opposition groups had been rather less enthusiastic with the scheme; accusing the government of painting a massive target on Fondor's back. Given the tactics adopted by the Mandalore, then Revan and finally Saul, and the amount that systems containing major military shipyards had suffered during the recent wars, it had been easy enough to whip up hysteria. The Republic Senate's ill-timed proposal to site a new military base alongside the shipyards had only gone to inflame matters further.

The arrival of a delegation from Kuat, to advise on the construction process, had been the final spark to ignite the whole mess into the current conflagration.

At least the Exchange hadn't downed tools in sympathy with the rest of the planet's workforce. Conscientious citizens that they were. It was too dark a thought to be particularly humorous.

He found the place he was looking for about ten minutes later, down another side street. Ostensibly, it was a droid repair shop, and there was no hint that it was open from the outside. The door, however, swung open easily when he tried it.

Picking his way through the dingy, barely lit interior between shelves full of assorted parts, he found the proprietor in the back room – a Verpine, as he'd been told to expect. The insectoid didn't turn round at his approach, bent over the detached head of a droid and fiddling with something inside its cranium. Carth cleared his throat.

"Can I help you sir?" The precise, ever so slightly prissy voice made him jolt, until he realised it originated from a protocol droid standing in the shadows. He'd walked right past it, taking it to be inactive.

"I'm looking for a woman." Carth watched the droid very closely. Probably just paranoia, drawn from his acquaintance with HK-47, but better to be safe than sorry. It translated his words into a series of rapid clicks – the Verpine language, of which he didn't understand a word.

The Verpine looked up at him, peering at him for a moment with its multi-faceted eyes, before letting loose a rapid-fire series of hissing clicks in answer. Then it returned its attention to its work.

"I'm sorry sir, but we don't sell women."

More clicking came from the Verpine. "Although my master says that he can make a fully functional woman droid to your exact specifications. It will take approximately three months and cost five-hundred thousand credits."

Carth blinked. "I'm not looking to purchase a woman!" He took a deep breath, and then added. "The woman I'm looking for is one of your customers. You'll remember her. She came in about two hours ago with a combination-locked box she wanted you to open."

The droid translated that into more clicking, and got a series of rapid-fire clicks in immediate answer.

"My master does not, under any circumstances, violate the confidentiality of his clients." The droid managed to sound sniffily offended.

Carth sighed wearily. "I can pay for the information."

"The master does not respond to bribes."

"No? Well perhaps you'd like to ask him, all the same." He shot the protocol droid a glare that was supposed to be intimidating. It singularly failed to intimidate.

The Verpine looked up again, antennae tilted at an angle that Carth suspected indicated annoyance. The tone of its clicking tended to reinforce the suggestion.

"My master suggests that, unless there is something you wish to purchase, you should leave. He is finding your presence a distraction."

"So it's like that, is it?" Carth let loose another sigh. "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to change your master's mind?"

"No."

Reluctantly he reached for the holster hidden underneath his jacket. The blaster pistol it held was unfamiliar in his grasp, bearing none of the intimately familiar scratches and dents and wear of his old pistol. "Why does everyone insist on doing things the hard way?"

-s-s-

"What is the meaning of this, Voonlar? Did I summon you into my great presence? I do not recall doing so."

The voice, deep and guttural, almost stentorian, spoke booming Huttese – a language Yuthura was all too familiar with. The Hutt it belonged to was an absolute monster – one of the largest she'd ever seen. It sat, reclining on a floating repulsor sled, and somehow managed to seem powerful and vigorous rather than grotesquely obese, despite its enormous girth. Its leathery hide had been recently oiled to help keep it from drying out, glistening obscenely.

"I . . ."

"Run away," she told the blue-skinned Twi'lek. "Don't stop running."

Voonlar's mouth snapped shut, and for a moment, he appeared to be in danger of choking as he struggled to get words past lips that refused to cooperate. There was a desperate, pleading look in his eyes as he gazed at his master, silently begging for either understanding or forgiveness.

Neither was likely to be forthcoming.

Then he did as he was told, the force compulsion implanted in his head becoming too strong to resist. He launched into a stumbling run, almost tripping over himself in his haste.

Once the doors to Seboba's chambers had whispered shut behind his rapidly departing back, booming laughter echoed, resoundingly loud. "Most amusing. I have not seen Voonlar so terrified in a long time, Yuthura Ban. My congratulations to you." Abruptly, all sense of amusement faded from the voice. "Of course, now I must have him killed for appearance's sake and find myself a new councillor." A noise that might have been a sigh, but sounded like the wheezing of a pair of gigantic bellows. "It is not easy to find good people these days."

Yuthura hid a grimace. "You know who I am, then?" She could speak Huttese fluently, but stuck deliberately to galactic basic. Hutt ears tended to find languages other than their own offensive. She was quite content to be offensive.

Beside Seboba stood a huge glass aquarium, filled with vaguely squid-like Klatooinian paddy-frogs. They were considered a delicacy among Hutts, typically swallowed alive. The way they squirmed as they passed down the gullet was apparently meant to be pleasurable.

At the bottom of the repulsor sled, crouched a pair of slave girls. One was a very beautiful and delicate looking red-orange Twi'lek girl. She looked to be no older than Mission Vao, her eyes downcast, as appropriate for a slave. A delicate gold ankle chain connected her to her master. The second was a lithe and elegant Togruta. Her terracotta coloured skin – raw and bleeding in places – showed signs of recent heavy punishment. Dim embers of defiance smouldered in her eyes, which looked at Yuthura with a curiosity she couldn't quite hide, suggested she was a relatively recent prize, captured rather than bred – Seboba showing off his latest acquisition.

Abruptly more laughter boomed. "Know who you are? I would hope so; given all the trouble I've gone through to get you here."

"To get me here?" Yuthura felt a surge of shock that stopped her in her tracks.

In an effort to cover up her sudden loss of composure, she reached out and used the force to snap the chains holding the two slaves. Thin, and made from gold, their hold was primarily symbolic. They came apart easily. "Get out of here. Find somewhere to lay low. Go, now."

The Togruta didn't need a second invitation, sprinting for the doors that Voonlar had departed through a few moments earlier. The Twi'lek girl, though, merely scampered a few yards to the cover of one of the exotic plants decorating the chamber, crouching there and trembling, obviously terrified by the entire situation.

"You didn't think I was doing this for Revan, did you?" Seboba seemed amused by the notion.

She shrugged. With virtually the whole galaxy looking for Revan one way or another, it had seemed a safe enough assumption. "Well the bounty is impressively large. And I've never encountered a Hutt who was capable of ignoring the chance to make that much money."

"Considering the risks – and likely costs attached – the amount of money is not so large as it at first appears. Besides, I already possess so much wealth that my palate has become somewhat jaded to it – shaming though that admission is for one such as me. No, nowadays I must look to other forms of . . . stimulation."

"And you hope to find that other form of stimulation in me?" Her eyes were hard. The hate and rage was a coldly burning centre – strangely comforting, like an old, familiar friend. It was too easy to embrace, and right now, it didn't seem that wrong at all.

"I saw you dance once, when you were the possession of Omeesh."

"I know."

"I have to admit, I was enthralled. Over the years, I have watched many thousands of slaves dance, but I would still count you as being among the ten best I have seen. At the time, I have to admit I was jealous that my worthless cousin could own such as you, so had to feign indifference to your display."

"Omeesh was your cousin?" She kept her voice neutral, though inwardly she felt a second dose of shock. Seboba's display of indifference those years ago had earned all of Omeesh's slaves harsh punishment. Several of the weaker ones had died because of it.

"A very distant cousin," Seboba emphasised. "Practically none of that unlamented fool's blood pollutes my mighty veins."

"And what? You want me to dance for you again?" She nodded downwards, prompting Seboba's virulent yellow gaze towards the lightsaber she held. "I don't dance any more. Not the way you mean." What was holding her back from using it – from dissecting this vile, corpulent slug into pieces – she wasn't quite sure.

The knowledge she would be stepping back across a line, everything that had happened since Korriban discarded? Perhaps that line had already been crossed. Was any of that important? She had made other promises too, far further back. That things like this would not be permitted to exist.

"A pity. If you possess a truly special gift, I think the only crime there is, is failing to make use of it." The Hutt's eyes blinked slowly as they looked at her, reminding her of a gigantic, malevolent lizard. "But, no. I do not wish you to dance for me. My little Nebri here, who you seem to have frightened so terribly, is already as skilled as you ever were. And she has not yet reached the peak of her abilities."

"So what do you want from me?"

Seboba chortled, seeming almost gleeful. "Why? Can't you guess, Yuthura Ban? I want to kill you. Slowly and at great length as I drink pleasure from every moment of your suffering."

Yuthura's lightsaber ignited with a quiet snap-hiss, shining incandescent purple. Seboba managed to look even uglier in its glare. "Really?"

"I also want to thank you."

"You want to thank me?"

"When you opened Omeesh's throat, you removed a major obstacle in my path to assuming control of our clan's household. And that in turn gave me the wherewithal to assassinate Bochaba and Jaranga, taking their seats in the Exchange. Without your intervention, my inevitable ascent would have been . . . rather more arduous than it was."

"Don't mention it." She hissed through her teeth, head tails writhing.

"Alas, family honour is at stake here, for all my gratitude. That one as prominent as Omeesh could be murdered by his own slave, and worse, that this slave still walks and breathes, unpunished, is an intolerable stain of embarrassment upon the name of our clan. A stain I vowed long ago to cleanse. The manner of your demise must send a message to all."

"Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I can see one slight obstacle in the way of your ambition."

More laughter, which made him resemble an over-puffed bullfrog. "A Jedi would not cut even one such as me down in cold blood. That is your weakness."

"But I am not a Jedi."

"You have spent most of these prior eight months studying among the Jedi on Dantooine. You may not officially be of there number, but I know that you were about to be accepted back. That you renounced the Sith and devoted yourself to their pathetic codes, seeking forgiveness and atonement. I considered moving for you then immediately, as soon as I knew you were beyond the protective bounds of Korriban, but I am capable of patience, and knew that a more suitable opening would present itself. Those interfering wizards can prove annoyingly nosey and persistent when stirred."

She bared her teeth. "Then it seems you have misjudged me."

So what are you? What do you want?

"Put down the lightsaber and surrender to me."

"Senility is such a sad thing to witness." She tried to sound mocking and contemptuous. The conversation had gone on far too long. Why are you suddenly so indecisive?

"Otherwise, your companions will be killed."

"I'd like to see you try." She stepped forward, lightsaber poised. "I have a counter offer. Surrender control of this ship into my command, and maybe I won't slice you apart, piece by blubbery piece."

"You heard and felt the explosions earlier on, did you not?" He didn't seem in the least bit concerned – someone who knew he held all the cards.

She had. And had promptly dismissed them as something of Tamar's doing, not willing to let herself be distracted from her goal.

"Those explosions isolated specific portions of four separate decks, trapping your companions and halting their advance. At my command, or if any harm comes to me, those areas will be exposed to vacuum and the fatal radiation of the Maw."

She felt something icy grip her heart. "You seem to be putting an awful lot of faith in the compassion of a former Sith."

Inwardly she was berating herself for an idiot, struggling to make herself concentrate hard enough to reach Tamar.

Here. His thoughts touched with hers, distracted and filled with urgency.

You need to find environment suits. Now.

Already working on it. Then, after a pause. We need some more time.

Will do.

The contact broke off, difficult to maintain for long amid so much external distraction. But apparently, even that much had been too long, diverting her attention from her surroundings for crucial fractions of a second. She had the fleeting impression of something moving rapidly towards her, and managed to half twist away as a polished metal bowl, used for serving paddy-frogs, descended towards her skull.

Even so, the impact was enough to drop her to her knees, her vision fading through red and black as she struggled to cling to consciousness. She tried to get her legs back under her, but they seemed to have turned to rubber.

Earlier she'd ordered HK to remain behind and guard the lift leading up to Seboba's private quarters. If she'd been thinking more clearly, she would have realised that Seboba would have already summoned his bodyguard to him, and questioned their absence from this chamber more closely.

Dimly she was aware of hidden compartments in the chamber's walls springing open, spilling armed guards who moved rapidly to surround her. She gripped the hilt of her lightsaber more tightly.

And she heard Seboba chuckling again, a bass coughing-croak. "Thank you, dear Nebri. My favourite of favourites. You will be rewarded well."

Passion leads to brainless stupidity. Why wasn't that part of the damned Jedi code?

-s-s-

The assassins came faster and more emphatically than even Morrigance had anticipated. She had to give Hulas that much. The Rodian had obviously only ever intended to use the Genoharadan's offer as a mechanism to draw her far enough into the open to strike at her, and no matter whether she accepted or not.

He'd chosen the nature of the assassins wisely too.

A squad of Iridorian berserkers, high on stims and battle frenzy, their minds impenetrable balls of spikes and thorns and insane bloodlust, blocking out all her attempts to sway or divert them from their purpose so she could simply slip away. There was nothing subtle about their approach. Nothing stealthy.

But then, she reflected sourly, quickening her pace, there was scarcely any need for them to be.

She felt their coming long before she actually saw them, walking silently through a deserted speeder parking lot. They announced their arrival with a hail of thermal detonators.

If she'd been less alert, the initial thunderous detonations, throwing parked speeders through the air like toys, might have been the end of it, despite the advance warning. As it was, she was already force-leaping clear while the grenades were in the air, able to duck into the cover of a thick plastocrete pillar and shield herself from the searing waves of heat and semi-molten shrapnel.

That heat was ferocious, the garage's sprinkler system coming on in a rushing deluge, filling the air around her with clouds of steam to mix with the choking smoke.

Through the silvery, vision-obscuring sheets of falling water she glimpsed dark figures darting forward, clad in heavily modified armour – jet black instead of the Iridorians' usual bold golds or reds – manoeuvring to try to outflank her position. Instantly she pulled a drone from her robes and tossed it into the air, whining and spiting blaster-fire like a demented Catherine wheel.

An entire storm of answering fire came back, tightly concentrated and accurate, obliterating the drone's shields, then its casing, dropping it – sparking and in fragments – to the ground. Still, it had done its job, providing the distraction she needed to slip out of the fast tightening circle and away, through the cascading water and clouds of steam to the next available bit of cover.

As she crouched on her haunches, her teeth were clenched behind the concealment of her blank metal mask. Run, Sith Lord, run. See the Sith Lord run. She darted forward again as they rapidly closed in on her, a hail of blaster shots raising lines of plastocrete shrapnel behind her heels or spattering off her personal shields, remorselessly stripping them away.

Once in cover again, she glided slowly, silently forward, listening to the falling water, listening to the sounds of their armoured footsteps – heavy and remorseless. One of them began to chant – low, guttural syllables of a language she didn't know. Some kind of battle hymn.

One by one, the others took up the chant, until it rang through the parking lot – harsh and echoing; elementally intense; terrifying.

At first Morrigance thought they were making a stupid error, giving away there respective positions and covering the sound of her own movements with the racket they were making. Then she realised differently.

As the initial rush of stims and berserker fury faded, the hymn gave their minds focus and strength, building a wall of ferocious concentration, through which the mental assaults of a force-adept could not easily penetrate. They had, she knew with abrupt certainty, done this many, many times before – whether hunting down Jedi or Sith, or more probably both.

Her gaze focused on one of them in particular. He was walking through a shallow puddle. Immediately she lashed out.

Lightning arced from her black-gloved hand, striking the water he walked through and crackling viciously up through him. The charge was enough to drop an adult rancor.

And when the lightning faded he was still standing – still walking forward, completely unaffected.

Modified armour. Oh yes, they'd definitely done this before.

Another hail of blaster shots homed in on her position, and she felt her shields wither away to nothing. Her breath was coming quickly. Oh, well done Hulas, you slimy bastard of a worm.

She almost couldn't believe it. She'd underestimated the Rodian – thought she could deal peremptorily with anything he might be able to throw at her. But like her, he'd apparently learnt a few new tricks since they'd both worked for Drevon Rae. And now, it was beginning to look like she was actually in serious danger of losing.

No, not like this. The thought was grim, concentration drawing into tight focus, blotting all distraction out.

The battle hymn renewed in ferocity, her attempts to distract and confuse sliding off ineffectually. If she concentrated solely on one of them, she might have been able to puncture his defences, but in the time and effort it took her, the others would be too close. She gave up on the attempt.

Instead, she picked up burning fragments of smashed speeder, hurling them about in fury, creating a wall of flying fragments and debris. Blaster fire augmented the chaos. More thermal detonators were hurled her way, making the entire building around them shake in time to the searing incandescence of their flashing explosions.

They drove her before them, and she was forced to yield ground, given no time to gain a proper footing – no time to strike back. One went down, pinned but not killed, as she flipped a speeder on top of him, but the other five just drew tighter.

She was forced to her ignite her lightsaber as one of them charged at her full on, vibroblades whirring angrily. Her initial lunge went straight through his defences, but the speed that he rushed her meant she was slightly off balance and only took him through the side instead of the chest. He didn't seem to feel the injury, and didn't slow in the slightest, driving her back behind a near-insane whirlwind of blows that kept her defences fully occupied.

She sensed the others rushing at her, hard and fast, moving to cut her off and finish her, a hunting pack working in flawless coordination. Desperately, she disengaged, force leaping backwards, before turning and running again, blaster fire chewing up the ground behind her and scorching her trailing robes.

Then she was crouching down behind another row of speeders, a brief instant of respite gained, listening to the Iridorians footsteps as they renewed their remorseless advance.

If you're losing the battle, fight a different one. Hate flared, white-hot. Galling really, for it to be his words that helped her.

She redirected her will, outside of the parking lot. Outside of the building completely.

Passing vehicles were slowing down and rubbernecking at the flashes from the explosions inside. Picking one – the largest and heaviest, in this case a delivery truck weighed down with a full load – she grabbed the mind of the gawping driver, sweeping aside his mental defences and violently usurping control. Yanking round on the controls and stamping down on the accelerator, she sent him speeding directly towards them, gaining speed and fearsome momentum by the millisecond.

The Iridorians didn't sense the truck coming. In the last few seconds before impact, Morrigance darted from her cover and sprinted hard, the force enhancing the speed of her movements, decreasing air resistance and augmenting muscle power.

The truck hit with stunning force. One entire side of the building seemed almost to ripple with the power of the impact, before belatedly, the disintegrating truck's fuel core erupted.

The Iridorians had barely started to turn around when the leading edge of a huge fireball rolled over them. Morrigance could feel the rush of heat at her back and flung herself forward, full length . . . diving straight out of the other side of the building and into the Coruscant night.

As she fell, cool air rushing past her, her mind was calm. A few seconds later the micro-parachutes beneath her robe auto-deployed, bringing her descent under control.

Minutes later, she was walking unhurriedly through a rooftop park, brilliantly lit skyscrapers rising up on either side. No one around her gave her a second glance. No one even consciously registered her presence among them.

She activated her communicator. "Did you get him?" she asked, no preamble.

There was a miniscule delay before a response came. "No." Then, in explanation. "He decoyed us. A droid containing cloned tissue that fooled our trackers."

"It doesn't matter."

And strangely, it didn't. In fact, for the moment at least, she was almost amused. Although she recognised the amusement was scarcely rational.

"You have a call," the voice added, obviously surprised to have escaped rebuke. "They insisted on waiting."

"Who?"

The voice told her.

"Put them through."

-s-s-

Don't eavesdrop unless you're prepared to hear something about yourself you don't like. Carth vaguely remembered that his mother had once told him that, though it was so long ago that he struggled to remember the context.

It seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

Eventually, he'd managed to track Yolanda down to an old tenement block located in an area of the city that trod uncomfortably close to the borders of being a slum. Now he was standing in a bare hallway, listening at the door of an apartment and feeling vaguely uncomfortable and embarrassed by the whole process.

The listening device he was using was able to pick up and amplify the sounds from inside just enough so that he could faintly hear Yolanda's voice. She was in conversation with someone, probably over a comm. link to judge from the context and the fact that he could only hear her half of the conversation.

". . . my apologies," she was saying. "I couldn't get hold of a sample. Jerstyl was acutely paranoid on this. Even I was kept completely out of the loop, and after his death all his labs and offices were locked down so fast and hard I was lucky to get even this much."

A short pause.

"No, the lock box was Jerstyl's. I had the mercenaries snatch it for me while I was occupied with evading Sith operatives. Needs must. I very much doubt they had either the time, or the wherewithal to open it and reseal it again without tripping the security mechanisms, or leaving obvious signs of tampering."

The pause was longer this time.

"Well, not having the Catcher breathing down my neck would be nice. I don't suppose . . ."

Her voice cut of abruptly, before resuming a second or so later.

"Ah, just a thought. Actually, it was slightly strange."

Carth attempted to fill in the other half of the conversation inside his head, based on the length of the gaps, and Yolanda's responses: What was?

"This Valdan Mayer character I mentioned. The Catcher became much more interested in him than me once he managed to blunder his way into the middle of things. The problem is, I can't work out why. As a spy, he's no more than borderline competent. Transferred from another branch of Republic military fairly recently would be my guess. He still has that bearing. Could become good with more experience, but at the moment . . . well, to be honest, I struggle to see much that's interesting about him. Certainly not from the Catcher's point of view."

Not interesting, huh? For some reason that rankled slightly. He shoved the thought away in annoyance, trying to concentrate on what was being said.

". . . I think he might have been a pilot once."

Why's that, Carth supplied.

"It's his whole bearing on board ship. He stops looking vaguely like a fish out of water for one thing."

Well, thanks.

"I included a holo-scan of him in with the data package I sent you. Maybe running it against Republic fleet personnel records for the past ten years or so might turn something up. He's wearing facial prosthetics, I think, but interpolative matching should help in getting round that."

Carth swore beneath his breath. Much too close for comfort. At that moment, he would have happily given up various body parts to find out just who, exactly, she was talking to.

". . . any further orders?" he caught her saying.

There was a long pause that he couldn't hope to fill in.

"Fine," Yolanda eventually said. From her decidedly unenthusiastic tone, whatever had been said had not been well received on her part. "I'll get on it and report back via the usual channels."

That was followed by silence. Carth was just realising that the conversation was over when someone called out from the far end of the corridor: "Hey, you there. What are you doing?"

Damn it. Carth straightened, looking up. The speaker was a Mrlssi, peering at him semi-myopically in the dingy light. He was struggling to find some kind of even half-convincing explanation, when abruptly the Mrlssi's eyes went even wider than normal, and it disappeared back into its own apartment like a retracting jack-in-the-box.

Just for a moment, he was baffled by the behaviour. Then he glanced down and realised that his jacket had fallen open just far enough to reveal the grip of his holstered blaster pistol. At least with the current circumstances in Fondor, even if the Mrlssi called the police, there wasn't likely to be a rapid response.

The door behind him whispered open.

He whirled, reaching down and drawing the pistol in a single smooth motion. And found himself staring down the barrel of his old blaster.

After several seconds of tense, silent standoff Yolanda cracked a sardonic looking half-smile. "Hello Valdan. Fancy seeing you here. Are we going to shoot each other in the hallway then?"

"I'll lower my gun when you lower my gun."

She gave a fractional nod of appreciation. "Now then?"

"Now," he agreed.

"I suppose you'd better come in," she said after a pause. "It is just you, isn't it? You don't have any big bad bogeymen with you right now?"

"Not yet anyway. But I'm guessing it's only a matter of time."

She looked different, he noted. There was a brown collar length wig, make-up that softened the angles of her face slightly, and the kind of plain grey suit that a mid-grade Fondorian office worker might wear. On the streets, he'd have had difficulty picking her out from the crowds.

In response, she grunted, and he gestured to the doorway behind her. "After you?"

"Too kind."

The interior of the apartment looked liked a particular kind of cheap hotel room – plain, solidly robust furniture and fittings, and no hint of personality to give any hint that anyone ever did more than pass straight on through. "Safe house?" he asked.

"Oh, I doubt it's particularly safe. You found it easily enough, after all. The Verpine?"

"The Verpine," he confirmed.

"I'm surprise you got him to talk. You don't seem ruthless enough."

He shrugged, deciding to let that pass. "I threatened his protocol droid. He seemed quite fond of it."

"Ah. Clever of you."

Carth's gaze settled on a low metal table in the centre of the room. On it lay the combination-locked box, now open. Next to it was a datapad – presumably what it had contained. Before Yolanda could stop him, he strode directly across and snatched it up.

She started to protest, but then simply shrugged – feigned indifference. "May as well take a look. I'm presuming it'll make exactly as much sense to you as it does to me."

Carth was already scrolling through the data. He frowned, brow creasing. "What is this?"

"You tell me." She sounded darkly amused.

"They look like . . . genetic sequences?" He looked up at her again, realising that if she'd wanted to, she could have pulled her stolen gun on him again. She hadn't.

"That would be my guess," she agreed.

"Human?"

"Some of them are, I think. There're thirty-eight of them in all."

"So who do they belong to?" Carth was feeling vaguely perplexed. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but this all seemed rather . . . anti-climactic.

Yolanda favoured him with a slanted smile. "If I knew that . . ." A barely perceptible headshake. "They've only got numbers attached, as you can see. No names."

"Surely you've got some idea," he insisted.

"I don't. Look a bit further down." She leant across him. "Yes, there. Much more interesting don't you think?"

If he could have made either head or tail of what he was looking at, it might have been. He looked at her at her inquiringly.

"Chemical formulas. Highly complex ones. And before you ask, I'm no chemist. Even if I was, I suspect I'd still need to put that lot through a supercomputer to get a proper analysis. It was what Jerstyl Daxar was working on when he died. Highly secretive. I didn't even know the client it was being done for, and that's unusual. Had me worried, to be honest. Made me think my cover might have been blown."

A thought occurred to Carth. "Do you think this list of people might be Jedi?" Council members perhaps, and the formula a poison designed to kill the – what had Tamar called them? – midichlorians, in a person's cells. Suddenly there was a pang of excitement. Perhaps this might be the smoking gun – the thing that could get Tamar off the hook and show the link to the real culprit.

Easy, easy. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

"How the hell should I know?" Yolanda was looking at him strangely. "And why would you say that?"

"Never mind. It's not important." His voice suddenly became flat and hard. "Who were you talking to? Who did you send all this to?"

Yolanda gave a snorting laugh and walked away from him. "So, you were listening at the door, were you? Careless of me, I suppose. If you must know, that was my handler. And that's the only form of answer you're going to get from me."

"Just who exactly do you work for?"

"Did you fail basic comprehension skills, Valdan? Or is it just that you've got the short term memory span of an Ardan gulpfish?" Shaking her head, she snatched up a bag from one of the chairs. "Come on. Given the amount of attention you've undoubtedly attracted, we should probably get out of here."

"We?"

"Aren't you going to insist?" She raised an eyebrow. "Well, then. No point me arguing, is there?"

Shaking his head in exasperation, Carth followed her.

-s-s-

Yuthura rose slowly back to her feet. Blood ran in sticky tracks down the side of her face from a tear in her scalp. She was intensely aware of the dozen or so guns that were pointed in her direction. Her lightsaber lay on the floor between her feet. Although it could spring to her hand and ignite in no more than a fraction of a second, there was no chance at all that she could deflect every shot aimed her way before they slammed into her body from point blank range.

Inwardly, she berated herself for the sheer idiocy that had gotten her into this position. If there was anyone who should have known the mindset of a slave, and how they were likely to react in a given circumstance, it should have been her.

Of course someone who'd been enslaved for most of their life wasn't going to take an uncertain chance of freedom. Of course they weren't going to be grateful for having the stability of their existence – however bad that might be – shattered. Instead, they were going to be scared – near frantic, and looking for a chance to avoid punishment; looking for a chance to prove their loyalty and worth.

But that was only one tiny part of her stupidity. Not able to be ruthless enough to take the opportunity when it was there. Not able to control emotion and memory well enough to avoid the situation in the first place. Neither one thing nor the other.

"Well? What now then?"

"Now I dispose of annoyances I no longer need, and are too dangerous to keep as pets." Seboba activated a communicator and spoke into it. "Deactivate shielding around the isolated decks and open them to vacuum."

Yuthura couldn't stop herself from flinching. Inside she felt as cold and brittle as ice.

Seboba's laugh boomed. "Do you have any idea how long I have spent on making this moment happen? Do you have any idea on how long I have sought you out?"

She didn't say anything, furious with herself.

"There were times when I started thinking this opportunity would never come. When I thought you might always remain beyond my reach. Then I heard about the assassination of the Jedi Council, and that you and Revan were being blamed, the entire galaxy hunting for your heads. I knew then that my chance had come. Ironic really that one old adversary should lead me to another . . ."

Yuthura wasn't listening to the Hutt's gloating. Instead, she had forced a fragile, temporary calm, reaching into the minds of one of those guarding her – a Klatooinian, who had obviously heard Seboba's verbosity one to many times before, and was letting his attention wander. Her touch light and fleeting, all she did was subtly alter his senses, shifting his perception of her position a few degrees to the left. She skipped across a pair of Echani, who were far too focussed and disciplined for her to affect without their noticing, then found a Nicto, who was likewise letting his thoughts wander, and did the same to him too.

Seboba finished talking. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, so she obliged.

"There is still time to release me, restore the environmental shields and re-pressurise the exposed decks, Seboba. You can still avoid your fate."

There was more booming, bullfrog laughter. "Your feeble mind tricks won't work on one such as me."

But they did work fairly well on the Klatooinian and the Nicto. Both of them, in their minds eye, suddenly saw her reach down to grab her lightsaber. Near simultaneously they pulled the triggers on their respective weapons . . . and shot each other.

They hit each other in the legs, obviously under instruction not to do her fatal damage, crying out in pain and collapsing together.

The other guards' attention momentarily left her, since she had clearly not moved, vainly searching for the hidden assailant. In that instant she activated her personal shield, calling her lightsaber to hand. Igniting it, she span round through a hundred and eighty degrees.

A couple of blaster shots deflected off the glowing purple blade. Another actually penetrated her defences, cracking off her shields with an impact that felt like a sharp jab to the ribs. A shot that missed over her shoulder hit the aquarium full of paddy-frogs, scattering them across the floor in a rush of brackish water. By then, she was flipping straight over their heads, out of their firing arc.

As she landed, she struck out with all the grace, discipline and economy of movement of the dancer she had once been, this time channelled in an altogether deadlier direction. The two Echani were alert enough to survive the first pass, but they were the only ones. The others were either dead or down, limbs sundered from bodies as they became caught up in the blazing whirlwind she seemed to have become.

As the Echani attempted to counterattack, she caught them both with a single force wave, knocking them off their feet and slamming them hard against the wall. One stubbornly tried to rise – attempted to swing at her. Her lightsaber evaded his vibroblade and pierced him through the chest, hissing and crackling as it flash-fried soft tissues. The second hastily dropped his weapons and scrambled away from her, hands raised in supplication.

With a breath she let him go – released the cold, killing focus.

Behind her, she heard a soft humming noise – whirled.

Seboba's repulsor-sled was moving with startling rapidity, straight toward a door that had opened behind him, seemingly out of blank wall. The Hutt had obviously seen enough and decided that discretion – and running like hell – was by far the better part of valour. Immediately she drew on the force again, shaping it in a fashion that Jolee had recently taught her. Crackling ionised energy leapt from her fingertips.

The repulsor-sled died with a pathetic sounding whine, tipping over onto its side and depositing Seboba in a heap on the floor.

Just for a moment, their eyes met.

The Hutt's gaze held both vituperative hate and fear. He startled her by suddenly gathering himself and sliding the last few metres across the floor, through the door, which immediately slid shut behind him.

She could have thrown her lightsaber to intercept. She could catch him still – slice through the door, then chase him down. There wasn't a chance that the Hutt could outrun her.

And when she caught him . . .

She hesitated though.

What do you want?

As long as she allowed what had happened in her past to continue to define a core part of her, there would always be that part of her which remained the slave. Each time she tried to kill it, she simply gave it the ground in which to take root more solidly.

Letting go . . . she obviously hadn't achieved that, even through the Jedi teachings. And she hadn't suddenly achieved it now. But when the choice came down to trying to save the others, or abandoning them to try and slay the past – compounding her mistakes, or trying to correct them – the decision suddenly became clear.

As long as you allowed yourself to see the reality of the choice, it was simple.

Although simple and easy were not the same things.

She turned away and let Seboba go. "HK, head for the bridge. I'll meet you there."

-s-s-

Seboba wheezed and gasped to a halt, his vast bulk quivering with effort. He hadn't moved this far at such a frantic, undignified pace under his own power since adolescence, and now it felt like someone had poured molten lead into his lungs. The muscles he'd been careful not to allow to slide totally into blubber – thus rendering him completely immobile, like so many of his elder brethren – burned from effort they had become unaccustomed to.

He tried to listen, but for a time the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own stentorian breathing and the thudding of his mighty heart. As he gradually recovered, it became clear that there was no immediate pursuit, and briefly, he considered turning back and trying to hold onto his ship.

But no. In his head, he saw the flash of purple lightsaber slicing through armour and flesh alike – the pale, hateful blood-streaked face behind it. That would be too much the risk, and a Hutt did not grow as old and large as he had without knowing which risks to take, and which to avoid.

Hate filled him then. Being forced to abandon his own ship. Being forced to take such a financial loss, with the accompanying loss of face. Until now, there had been little hate in his pursuit – merely the obligations of family honour, and the need to remove the lingering stain of weakness.

Hate, he had always thought, should be nurtured and allowed to mature like finest Corellian Brandy. You should never rush it, and when it did finally become time to crack it open and drink deeply, the taste would be all the sweeter to savour.

He started forward again, toward the sleek, gleaming yacht berthed in his private landing bay, almost having managed to convince himself that this too was all part of the plan.

Abruptly he stopped. The rear entry ramp was down.

He hadn't left the ramp down. His maintenance crews knew far better than to be so careless.

Someone was standing there. For a moment, he struggled to work out how Ban could possibly have gotten ahead of him. Then he realised that it wasn't her. The silhouette was too big, probably male and human.

Fury filled him, overwhelming any thoughts of circumspection. "Who dares . . .?"

The figure, who had been talking to someone else further inside the yacht, turned around and stepped forward. The dim light of the landing bay gleamed on polished metal.

For a moment, Seboba thought that it was simply armour. Then the figure took another couple of forward steps, and he saw it was a cyborg. A big mean-looking, heavily armed cyborg.

"Well, well. Look at what we have here." The cyborg gestured to someone over his shoulder. "No, stay out of this. This is mine."

The private landing bay was packed full of automated defence systems and battle droids concealed in various alcoves, ready to spring to his command at a moment's notice. Seboba activated the remote he carried to trigger them.

Nothing happened.

"Don't you recognise me, you fat sack of slime?"

Seboba peered at the figure. One member of a lesser race was typically very similar to another.

"Oh come on, surely you do? All that entertainment I gave you. No?" Kreed took another couple of steps forward. The expression on his face was nominally a smile. "Does this jog your memory? I once disagreed with something of yours that ate me."

-s-s-

"What are the radiation levels like?" Tamar asked, his voice quiet as it carried over the comm. of his scavenged environment suit.

"You really want to know the answer to that one?" Jolee's answer was sour.

"That good, huh?"

"We've got maybe an hour before we take any lasting damage."

Tamar grunted. "Maybe we can cut our way through . . ."

It was Zaalbar who nixed that idea, mournfully pointing out that the melting point of starship grade plasteel meant it would take about six hours to cut a hole through the couple of feet or so of it they'd need to, even with the help of a lightsaber. The Wookiee was crammed into a suit that had probably belonged to something like a Trandoshan. It was just barely large enough to seal around his frame, but it looked like it was doing painful, and possibly damaging, things to his posture.

A space walk to a section of the ship that was still pressurised and had its shields up meant exposing themselves even more directly to the Maw's radiation. T3 might make it, but none of the rest of them would. The landing bays, which were now fully open to the void, had already reached radiation levels nearing those of outside, so grabbing a ship and simply flying out was likewise problematic.

Everything else that Tamar had come up with ran into similar dead ends. At this point, it felt like he was treading through ever decreasing circles. There has to be bloody something.

His communicator beeped, startling him. Seboba, was his initial thought, ready to make demands now that he'd demonstrated he meant business.

It was Yuthura.

"We could use a little help here," he told her when the surprise and relief had passed. "Things are . . . looking a little sticky at the moment."

"I'm in control of the bridge." On the surface, her voice was cool and business-like, but there was something else underneath. "The environmental shields are up again, and I'm having atmospheric pressure restored. It's likely to take a few hours though, so you're stuck in the suits for the moment."

"You took control of the bridge," he said eventually. "On your own?"

There was a delay. "The way things work around here, whoever holds the biggest stick controls the ship. Right now HK is the biggest stick, and I hold HK. More or less." Another brief pause. "I haven't seen such forced enthusiasm and disingenuousness since the academy on Korriban."

"And Seboba?" As he said it, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Crawled away somewhere." It was dismissive. "He might pop up somewhere and cause more trouble, but for the moment things are just about under control." Her voice sounded . . . he didn't know what it sounded, but strange.

After a moment, she added, scarcely louder than a whisper. "I'm sorry."

He blinked, temporarily too surprised to say anything.

-s-s-

"Personal business all taken care off?" It was Rath's voice that greeted Kreed as he walked back up the yacht's ramp.

"All taken care off," he confirmed heavily. "You might want to watch where you're stepping out there. It's a bit . . . messy. Frag grenade enema," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Charming." Abruptly Rath's tone became all business. "There's been a change of plan."

"Oh?" Kreed stopped in his tracks. The plasteel sections of his body glistened wetly with a residue of Hutt blood and other internal fluids. "I thought we were all agreed. Get this thing up and running, and get clear. Rendezvous with the Ebon Hawk."

"Circumstances have changed." Rath's voice sounded brisk – almost cheerful. Kreed immediately developed a profound sinking feeling.

"Ygress managed to hack his way into the onboard communication system. Just before you and Seboba did your . . . business, the Hutt managed to trap Revan and most of his companions. They're still stuck, for the moment, as good as helpless. Right now, Yuthura Ban has gained nominal control over the Rancorous's bridge, but that's all it is. Nominal. If we move fast and strike hard, we regain everything we thought we'd lost the chance of." Their was a quiet ferocity. "This is our opportunity. We can't afford to let it slip."

Kreed nodded slowly. "Yeah, I agree. You're absolutely right there."

Rath looked surprised.

With utmost care and precision, Kreed hit him – a meticulously weighted blow to the jaw. As Rath crumpled, legs giving way, he caught him. A slight grunt of effort and he hauled his boss up, over his shoulder. It took a moment or two to get him comfortably settled, then he started walking further inside Seboba's yacht.

He met Shak coming the other way. Their eyes locked

Shak, he was aware, might be a problem. Not because of Rath per se, but simply because the big Trandoshan was seemingly always on the look out for any reason at all to start a fight. Shak just sneered though, going on with whatever it was he'd been doing without a word.

Ravelasch was a different matter.

The Defel seemed to materialise out of nothing directly in front of him. Kreed was aware of several other members of the brothers fanning out behind him. They were loyal to Rath, and only Rath, unto death.

"What are you doing?"

To start with, it was civil, but Kreed could sense the tension behind the words. "Tough love. You heard of that Rav? Sometimes, when someone's not seeing clearly, you have to step in. For their own good. For everyone's good."

Ravelasch didn't say anything. Seconds ticked by, and Kreed grew increasingly uncomfortable, wondering if he'd blown it.

Then, abruptly, Ravelasch stepped aside.

Kreed let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. "So come on then. Let's get this heap powered up. The Hawk's going to be here soon. Best not keep them waiting."