Hunter's watched Aurra Sing carefully, his fingers just brushing the hilt of his knife as she pulled Crosshair's pistol from its holster and tossed it aside.

"You want to talk," the sergeant repeated slowly. "What about?"

"Not with you," she began, but was interrupted by Crosshair jerking sideways. Yanking him back into position, she jammed the blaster into his temple and hissed, "You'd better hold still, handsome."

Crosshair blinked, then grimaced in disgust, but he did stop struggling.

"That's better. Now." Aurra turned back to Hunter. "I want to talk with your Jedi." She all but spat the last word.

"By all means, proceed." Tech adjusted his goggles. "We are not stopping you."

"Yeah?" Aurra Sing gestured with her blaster. "Quit cowering, Vos, and come out where I can see you!"

Quinlan, who was standing in plain view between Tech and Hunter with his arms folded, didn't move. "You know," he said nonchalantly. "I've seen some horrible things the past few days, but you're on a whole new level."

She rolled her eyes, her artificially long lashes fluttering.

"I'm serious," Quinlan insisted, and he sounded it. "Orange is an absolutely terrible color for you. Then again, it's not like a different color would be much of an improvement." He surveyed the jumpsuit she wore and winced. "And your sense of style is on par with a bantha's, but – whatever, I guess."

Wrecker snorted, and Hunter send a sidelong look at the Jedi. What was it he was trying to do?

"Listen," Aurra sneered. "If you think cheap insults will get to me, think again."

Quinlan looked surprised. "I always heard women liked to be complimented. It's not my fault there's so little to work with."

After a moment during which Aurra Sing only stared at him in disbelief, Quinlan went on. "I mean, between the corpse-colored skin and the metal implant in your head . . ." He trailed off eloquently, his gaze flitting ever so briefly to Tech.

Crosshair raised an eyebrow at Hunter; the sergeant shrugged, feeling a bit out of his depth.

With an irritated look, Aurra shifted her weight and tapped her blaster against Crosshair's throat. "Don't test my patience, Vos."

"Okay, fine." Quinlan sighed, looking bored. "Enough with the civilities, let's skip to business. What do you want, Aurra? Besides – y'know, me being dead?"

"Some information, for a start." Aurra glanced at the Havoc Marauder. "Where's the Phoenix? I know you boys are working for Vythia Archane."

"We aren't, actually." Quinlan glanced idly at his fingernails. "We were, pretty recently, though, so your intel's not completely inaccurate. Just outdated."

"Ugh, never mind!" The bounty hunter rolled her eyes. "Just tell me where she is!"

"Vythia?" Hunter frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"Because she owes me. Why else?"

When Crosshair shifted, as though ready to make another attempt at escape, Aurra wrapped her inhumanly long fingers around his throat and leaned over his shoulder. "Don't fight me, or you'll regret it. Now – Jedi. Answer the question. Where is Vythia?"

Quinlan shrugged. "She's dead."

". . . Dead?" Aurra eyed each of the team members calculatingly, as if trying to figure out who exactly had killed the Nautolan woman. "Huh, can't say I expected that. . . In fact, I'm not sure I believe it."

"Believe it," Crosshair said bad-temperedly.

"Jedi don't usually sink to treachery," she said. "But you're an Investigator, Vos. You'd sink to pretty much anything, wouldn't you? What'd you do, stab her in the back?"

"What's it to you?" Quinlan asked.

"She was pretty good at what she did," the Palliduvan replied, her gaze still flitting among them. "A bit naïve, but good at her job. I find it interesting that she somehow died, and the rest of you didn't. Or is that she decided not to come back?"

"Stars," Quinlan muttered. "You are one suspicious – Okay, how about this? I will happily give you the coordinates for where we left the Phoenix, in about a thousand pieces, and you can go find Vythia yourself. Good luck surviving. I'm still surprised we escaped."

Aurra Sing narrowed her black-shadowed eyes at him for a long moment, apparently trying to gauge the truth in his words. Crosshair, who had been remaining motionless, shot another look down at the blaster.

Quinlan stepped forward, gesturing slightly at Aurra. When he spoke again, his words seemed to have a strange weight to them. "Vythia is dead, Aurra. I guess you'll have to take your complaint elsewhere."

"Yeah . . ." Aurra started to lower her pistol. "I guess I'll have to –" Her eyes suddenly turned cold, and she jerked the weapon back to position. Staring fixedly at Quinlan, she whispered, "Oh, no, you don't, sweetheart."

"Uhh –" Wrecker cleared his throat, then tilted his head towards Quinlan and lowered his voice. "Does she talk like that to everyone?"

"Yep," Quinlan replied under his breath, though all his focus appeared to be on Aurra Sing. "It's a terrible habit, honestly."

Aurra tossed her head, smirking at the Jedi. "Nice try. It's been awhile since I dealt with direct mind tricks. Guess I didn't take enough precautions after all, did I?" She prodded Crosshair with her gun. "You. Get up."

As Crosshair obeyed, his gaze flickered between his teammates as though he were waiting for one of them to give him a hint, or some kind of direction. Tech looked up from his datapad, took in the situation at a glance, and went back to whatever he was working on.

Hunter reached for his knife again, narrowing his eyes at Aurra as she backed slowly away with her prisoner. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"What do you think I'm doing? I need a hostage." She eyed Hunter for a couple of seconds. "Though – hm, yeah. Tell you what. If you come over here, I'll send the sniper back."

"Why?" Crosshair asked.

Before she could even begin to respond, Quinlan said, "We're not playing your games, Aurra."

"Oh, you'd better." She jerked Crosshair back again. "Or this guy gets a blaster bolt right through the skull."

"Skull or neck are your best options," Crosshair told her with a sneer. " 'Cause you'll only get one shot. Better make it count."

Hunter stared at him in disbelief. "Crosshair!"

"Well." Tech lifted his visor, head tilted in consideration. "He does have a point."

"Tech!" Hunter barked.

"What?" Tech blinked at him, then explained. "Despite the modifications on Aurra Sing's blaster, a single shot from it will be unable to cause fatal damage through his armor. And, of course, by the time she manages to take a second shot, he – and the rest of us – will have attac –"

"Tech."

At the sergeant's tone, Tech closed his mouth abruptly. Quinlan looked amused, and Hunter took a deep breath, grateful that at least Wrecker – at least currently – had the sense not to escalate the situation.

Just as Hunter was about to ask Aurra what exactly she wanted from them, Crosshair ducked and tried to break the Palliduvan woman's grip around his throat. He almost succeeded, too, but she twisted with him, tightening her fingers around his neck and shoving him forward.

With an irritated huff, Aurra looked over at Quinlan and Hunter. "Don't panic, boys, I'm putting this on stun."

She flicked something on her blaster, then released Crosshair and shot him with a stun round. As Crosshair collapsed dizzily to his knees, semi-conscious, Aurra stared down at him, resting one hand on her hip. "That's more like it."

Hunter turned sideways in an attempt to slide his knife out of his vambrace without Aurra seeing, but she had already dropped to one knee behind Crosshair and was holding him upright with one hand, using him as a shield.

"Aurra," Quinlan began.

"Shut up!" the bounty hunter snapped. "Now – here's the thing. Vythia Archane might be dead, but that doesn't change the fact that she owes me ten thousand credits, which she said she'd have the funds for after her little expedition."

"Uh-huh . . ." Quinlan studied her. "And that's our problem, how?"

"Because I'm making it your problem," the Palliduvan replied. "If I can't get it from her, I intend to get it from you."

"Well, too bad," Hunter replied. "We don't have ten thousand credits."

"You don't, huh? What about the treasure Vythia was going after?"

"We don't have any treasure," Quinlan said flatly.

"Yeah." Wrecker shoved his helmet back on his head and frowned at her in obvious dislike. "And it's not like we'd give it to you even if we did."

"Sure you wouldn't." Aurra Sing jerked her chin at Hunter. "All right, then, we'll simplify matters. I'll let your friend go if you get over here, now."

Hunter stood his ground. "Why?"

She tapped her blaster against Crosshair's cheek. "Because this one doesn't have a bounty on him, and you do. If you don't have the money with you, I'll get it another way."

Hunter took a slow step forward, as though about to obey, then paused and folded his arms. "How? The bounty was posted by Grakkus."

"So what?"

"So . . ." Hunter lowered his arms, unable to keep from smirking. "Maybe it's not in your best interests to bring us to Grakkus."

The Palliduvan narrowed her eyes. "What are you trying to say?"

"That you haven't been working only for Grakkus."

"Is that right?"

"Yep," Quinlan said. "In fact, Aurra, you worked directly against Grakkus' interests. And as we all know, the Slug – I mean the Hutt Cartel – does not deal nicely with backstabbers."

As Crosshair shifted, straightening a little from his daze, Aurra said, "Oh, yeah? Who was I working for, then?"

"The Prince," said Quinlan. "Obviously. Vythia worked for the Prince, and you worked for Vythia, so . . ."

"What Vythia owes me has nothing to do with the Prince."

"Yeah, that's definitely not true," answered the Jedi, and glanced at Tech. When Tech nodded, Quinlan went on, "See, here's the thing – I know all about your deal with Vythia."

Hunter resisted the impulse to stare at Quinlan. As far as he knew, he'd only been guessing about Vythia and her connection to Aurra Sing.

"Do you. . ." When Aurra tilted her head, her long ponytail brushed the duracrete. "You know, hon, I'm not sure I believe that."

"Fine," Quinlan said calmly. "Then I'll summarize. Vythia Archane approached you while you were working only for Grakkus – well, you were collecting bounties from Dverik at the time, too, but that's not really relevant. Vythia hired you to pass certain information about the Prince on to Grakkus. You agreed. Vythia then supplied the information, which you gave to Grakkus as your own –"

Hunter focused on Aurra's eyes, which had been growing sharper as Quinlan spoke.

"And then –" The Jedi took a breath, then rattled off the next sentence. "At Vythia's request, you also gave Grakkus the idea of influencing the Hutt Cartel to ask the Jedi Council to send a Jedi to Nar Shaddaa. . . That about sum it up?"

There was a brief pause while Aurra sent a quick, probing look at the others. "You have proof of all that, do you?"

"Oh, we have all the proof we need," Quinlan said.

"And we'll use it," Hunter added firmly, even though he had no idea what kind of proof they had yet.

"Yup!" Wrecker said cheerfully. "So you'd better let Crosshair go and get lost so we don't turn you in."

"Precisely my thoughts," Tech said, and looked up. "I have the Prince's contact information, Aurra. Shall I inform him of your whereabouts?"

"You can try," she said. "But if you so much as touch that comm, I'll kill the sniper and then you."

Despite her aggressive tone, though, Hunter could tell her nerves were shaken. He glanced at his teammates. Tech had put away his datapad, and Wrecker was folding his arms and frowning.

Quinlan had drawn his lightsaber, but not activated it. "Yeah . . . I don't think you want to do that, Aurra," he said seriously. "Pull that trigger, and you won't live another minute."

"Yeah?" She eyed him up and down, then shrugged one shoulder. "Don't bet on it. I've killed Jedi before, and I can do it again."

To Hunter's surprise, Quinlan gave her a sharp smile. "But I'm a Jedi Shadow, Aurra, not just a Jedi Knight – or a Jedi youngling."

". . . What did you say?" she asked, and her voice was low and dangerous.

Hunter let his hand hover above his blaster.

"Oh, you recognize this?" Quinlan held out the lightsaber hilt. "This one belonged to one of the four younglings. I have the one you took from the padawan. You didn't even give those kids a chance, Aurra."

"Of course I didn't." Her grey lips twisted in an unpleasant smile. "I know better than to take stupid risks."

"Do you? Good." The Jedi took a slow step forward, flipping the hilt so he held it in a reverse-grip. "Then you won't push us, will you?"

The shadows around her eyes darkened as she turned her head, observing each of the others. Hunter stared her down for a moment before her gaze slipped over Tech – she probably didn't see him as much of a threat, which was definitely a mistake – hesitated on Wrecker, and then slid to Crosshair, who was conscious again and looking irritated.

"Well," she said at last. "Looks like we've both got something to hold over the other's head, Vos."

"Yeah," Quinlan said. "Though I should point out you have a lot more to lose. If you don't choose very carefully in the next minute or so, you'll have the Hutts, the Prince, and the Jedi trying to run you down. You can't take down all of us. Even if you manage to kill me, one of my teammates will send our information to everyone who could possibly have a reason to want you dead. Sure, you would probably escape at first – but even if you did, you'd never be able to get a high-profile job again."

She looked scornful, but Hunter could tell she was considering what he'd said. He glanced at his chronometer. "Better choose quickly," he said. "We're on a bit of a tight schedule."

"Only one problem," she said, flicking her hair over one shoulder. "What's to stop you from sending that information anyway?"

"Nothing," Quinlan replied. "You'll just have to take us at our word. Either way, I'm informing the Jedi Council about you. As far as the Prince and the Hutts go, though . . . as long as you keep out of our way, I'm willing to drop it."

"So are we," Hunter said, gesturing at his teammates. "We'll forget about our intel on you as long as you leave us alone."

Crosshair shot him an irritated look, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Fine," Aurra said. "But remember – Nar Shaddaa is no place for Jedi or their allies."

"And yet here we are," Quinlan said. "I appreciate your warning, though. . . even if I do realize that you mean you intend to let some of the lowlife here know that a Jedi is around."

Hunter blinked.

"Ha!" Wrecker stepped towards Aurra, cracking his knuckles. "Anyone dumb enough to take us on is welcome to try!"

Crosshair sniffed, amused, and turned to glance over one shoulder. "What he said."

With a shove, Aurra released him and stepped back, giving Quinlan a nasty look. "I won't be forgetting about you, Vos."

"Same here," Quinlan replied. "Even though I wish I could. Don't worry, Aurra – I'm not getting rid of my intel on you. Better hope nothing happens to our ship, because I'll just assume you're responsible. Ever hear of a dead man's switch?"

When her gaze flicked to the Marauder, Hunter realized she'd probably been getting ideas about sabotaging it. She backed towards the narrow walkway that extended from the landing pad, her blaster still aimed at Crosshair, who had gotten to his feet and was glaring after her.

"In fact," Quinlan mused, louder than necessary. "Maybe I should assume that if we get attacked by thugs, you are responsible for that, as well."

Her glower turned poisonous.

"Goodbye," Tech said, with finality.

With a final, narrow-eyed glare at the Jedi, Aurra took out her cable attachment. She took a running start and fired it at a higher level; a few seconds later, she had vanished into the jungle of walkways that crisscrossed in all directions.

The team didn't waste any time boarding the Havoc Marauder and closing the ramp behind them. As soon as Hunter heard the door lock, he headed into the cockpit.

"Anyone else going to attack us?" he demanded, tossing his helmet into the nearest seat. "Or is there a slight chance we can deal with the Prince without being ambushed again?"

"Actually," Tech said. "There is a better than slight chance, particularly if we walk into the Prince's fortress without attempting further subterfuge."

Crosshair, who had been wearing a contemplatively murderous expression ever since he regained consciousness, took out a toothpick and bit down on it.

"Glad to hear it," Quinlan said. "I'm sick of bargaining with crooks."

"Yeah!" Wrecker pounded one fist into the opposite hand. "Let's go bust up some artifacts already!"

"Hold it," Hunter said, turning to Tech and Quinlan. "First – what was all that out there, with Aurra?"

"That was awesome, that's what it was." Grinning, the Jedi clapped Tech on the shoulder.

Tech took off his own helmet, smirking faintly. "Quinlan indicated the bionic implant in her head. I was able to use it gain the leverage we needed it."

Wrecker, Crosshair and Hunter looked silently at each other.

"I could be wrong," Hunter said at last, "but I don't think that explained anything."

"Aurra uses that antenna in her head for communications," Quinlan said. "And she has something connected to it, or maybe to her brain, that increases her long-term memory."

"Well," Crosshair said slowly. "That's not disturbing."

"Tell me about it." Quinlan slouched into the co-pilot's seat and turned to face the commandos. "Anyway, I figured Tech could do something to help us out, and I was right."

"I accessed her comm records, employing Vythia's codes." Tech turned his datapad so the others could see the lines of text. "This is a transcript of every call Aurra Sing exchanged with Vythia. Quinlan and I had already spent some time earlier today theorizing as to what exactly Vythia wanted Aurra to do; I was able to confirm that he had been correct in every particular."

"That's a first," Crosshair said, looking amused.

Wrecker laughed, and Quinlan rolled his eyes. "I'm correct most of the time, thank you very much." He paused in thought, then added, "If you ignore half this mission."

"So . . ." Hunter glanced out the viewport at the darkening platform. "Aurra Sing shouldn't be a problem anymore. Right?"

"Right." Quinlan leaned back in the chair and spun it idly. "She was furious, but she's not about to risk her career. Now it's just the Prince and his bounty hunters, if they're even in his stronghold."

"Yeah." Hunter leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "About that – what's the plan?"

"At this point? Guess we could try just playing it by ear."

Even though they intended to play it by ear, though, the team spent a good fifteen minutes arguing about plans over dinner. Or at least, the commandos argued and Quinlan listened while they mentioned plan after plan, each with its own number, without explaining what any of those plans entailed. So far, the lack of explanation didn't matter – the clones hadn't agreed on any of them anyway.

Personally, Quinlan wanted to know what Plan Thirty-Six was, because when Wrecker suggested it, the other three replied with immediate negatives.

"Aw, come on!" Wrecker slumped back in his seat. "You guys never want to use –"

"Darned right we don't," said Hunter.

"But if I just got the right detpack –"

"You could kill us all," Crosshair finished with mock cheerfulness.

"But that was last time! I know how to do it now! You've just gotta make sure the primer's –"

"Not Plan Thirty-Six," Tech said. "Plan Forty might be of some use, though."

Hunter nodded. "Or Plan Seventeen. But I still think Plan Eighty-Five is the –"

"What's Plan Thirty-Six?" Quinlan asked loudly.

Silence fell. The commandos glanced from him to each other. Then Hunter turned to Tech with too much enthusiasm and said, "Plan Forty sounds good."

Quinlan raised an eyebrow at Wrecker. The big commando's only response was a shrug and an apologetic grin, which meant it was probably one of those plans that nobody outside the squad was supposed to know about because it was highly illegal. That, or the commandos didn't want Quinlan knowing about it because he'd think it was a good idea and vote for it.

He smirked at the thought, and the sergeant narrowed his eyes.

"What?" Quinlan demanded, raising his hands in surrender. "I didn't say anything!"

Sighing, Hunter reached for an energy drink. "You didn't have to."

"Oh . . . Cool. Um, anyway, while you guys were throwing numbers back and forth, I came up with a strategy of my own. We give the Prince the scepter, analyze the room and the number of guards, and take him hostage."

"Hostage?" Hunter asked. "You mean so no one shoots at us? That – might not work so well."

"Yeah," Crosshair said. "Last time we tried that, someone on the hostage's side killed the hostage. On purpose."

Quinlan blinked. "Uh – well, if Vythia's codes don't give us anything about the Sith lord, then the Prince is our only remaining link. We'll bring him to Coruscant with us. The Council can deal with him from there."

"How will we know who the Prince is?" Tech asked. "I believe you said earlier that no one was allowed to see him."

"Right, but there's got to be people guarding the entrance to whichever level or rooms he lives in. I just have to convince the guards to let us in – and that shouldn't be a problem."

"Hmmm." Hunter rested his chin on one hand. "Yeah . . . that should work. Assuming the Prince doesn't have a lot of guards to call in after we enter the room."

"Even if he does," muttered Crosshair.

"Yeah." Wrecker grabbed another ration bar, breaking it in half to tear the wrapper. "We haven't had a good fight in a while!"

"I'm . . . not going to answer that," Quinlan decided, glancing at his chrono. "Hey, if everything goes well, we could be headed off Nar Shaddaa by midnight. Wouldn't that be great."

"Definitely," Hunter said. "Might take longer than a few hours, though, if you're planning to bring the artifacts on board. You still want to destroy them once we're in space?"

Quinlan shook his head. "Not unless I find something really powerful. It's too much of a risk, trying to cart them all back here."

"You'll just destroy them where they are, then?" Hunter asked, with a cautious look.

"Yeah."

"Hmm." The sergeant sounded as uneasy as Quinlan felt. For good reason, too, considering the number of times on Malachor that Quinlan had minorly freaked out –

Okay, and not so minorly, he admitted to himself. But even though he hadn't said it yet, Quinlan found it even more concerning that he'd stopped feeling physically sick when exposed to the Dark Side. There was something wrong with that . . . at the same time, he might as well take advantage of it.

Before he could explain that the dark energy from destroyed artifacts shouldn't be a problem, Crosshair elbowed Wrecker and said, "This time, we should use explosives to get rid of the artifacts, so the Jedi doesn't take ten years to recover."

Quinlan whacked Crosshair's arm with the back of one hand, then winced at the impact of his knuckles against plastoid.

Rolling his eyes, Hunter got to his feet and frowned down at the two of them. "Stop bickering, already."

"We weren't bickering."

"Yeah, I was just hitting him for being a jerk." Grimacing, Quinlan rubbed at his knuckles. "Sadly, I forgot about the armor. Are we done here?"

"Yes." Hunter's answer was all but growled.

As he stalked out of the room, Wrecker whispered, "Hey, does anyone else think the sarge is a little on edge?"

Tech got up and stretched his arms. "Given the continual banter today, it is hardly a surprise."

"Yeah, guess so."

Tech shot an amused look towards the cockpit and raised his voice slightly. "Now, I am going to download Vythia's codes to the extra datapad so we have a backup if need be. I believe that is what Hunter was suggesting I do, when he was interrupted by Crosshair getting himself ambushed."

"I did not get myself ambushed." Crosshair flicked a ration bar at his head, huffing when the shorter commando dodged."

"Technically, you did. Just like Wrecker got himself concussed by the leviathan."

"Huh. . . " Quinlan observed Tech with interest. "Out of curiosity, are you trying to start a fight?"

Blinking, Tech adjusted his goggles.

"I got myself concussed?" Wrecker demanded.

"Yes. Technically."

Wrecker jumped to his feet. "Oh, I'll show you technically!"

From the cargo hold, Hunter let out an exasperated yell, then shouted, "That's enough!"

It was nineteen-thirty by the time the team reached the Prince's stronghold. Crosshair parked the speeder on the walkway bordering the warehouse and shut off the engine.

Without pausing to look around, Quinlan vaulted out of the speeder and headed straight for the door he'd used when he spoke with Vythia for the first time. Hard to believe that had only been – what, eighteen days ago? The Jedi paused to look up at the straight, featureless walls of the building. As he did, the thin chain that hung around his neck caught at his hair, and he tucked it beneath his tunic.

"Someone's following us," Hunter whispered. "On the roof. Pretty sure it's Dengar."

"Good." Quinlan walked up to the door and banged on it. "He can report we're waiting to be let in."

Not ten seconds later, someone thudded to the walkway behind them. Quinlan turned a little, keeping half his attention on the door.

"Dengar," Tech said. "You are still around?"

"Yeah . . ." The man with the white turban sauntered closer, fingering one of the small grenades that hung from his bandolier. "And so are you. Question is, what exactly are you doing here?"

"What does it look it?" Hunter gestured to the silver chest. "We're bringing what we were sent to get. Maybe you can tell the Prince we have the artifact he wanted."

"I'll have to see it, first," Dengar said, looking suspicious.

"Fine." Quinlan used the Force to touch his mind. "Better not do it here, though. Too many eyes."

"Better get inside," Dengar agreed.

Once the door shut behind them, Wrecker and Hunter showed Dengar the scepter while Crosshair kept watch and Tech ran scans.

Without closing his eyes, Quinlan reached into the Force. It only took a few seconds for him to locate a nearby artifact – and a few more seconds to realize that all the Dark Side artifacts were being stored in a single location. Well, that makes our job a lot easier.

Glancing at Dengar, who was occupied with taking a picture of the scepter, Quinlan shifted closer to Tech. "They're two levels up," he whispered. "Large room, a little to our right."

Nodding, Tech tilted the datapad towards him. Quinlan studied the schematics for a long moment, then pointed to the room.

Dengar's comm beeped, and he stood up, putting one finger to his earpiece. "Yeah, I've got it right here," he said. "Want me to bring it up?"

"Wait." Hunter stepped between him and the chest. "Not so fast. We are going to deliver it to the Prince in person."

Still with one hand on his comm, Dengar reached for his gun. "The guys who brought it want to deliver it themselves. Do I detain them?"

Moving slowly, Crosshair drew one pistol and checked the charge. Hunter toyed with his knife while Wrecker kicked the silver chest closed and put one foot on the lid.

"Vythia? Haven't seen her," Dengar said, then snorted. "No, of course I didn't think to ask. Why would I? Not like little Miss High-and-Mighty ever told us hirelings where she was or what she was –"

He paused, then rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine. So what do you want me to do with them? . . . Five. One of 'em is the Kiffar. . . Okay, I'll bring 'em up."

Ending the call, he turned to them. "The Prince says you can wait outside his rooms while he looks at the scepter."

Hunter glanced surreptitiously at Quinlan, who inclined his head.

"Fine," the sergeant said. "Lead the way. Wrecker, you carry the chest."

They went up a lift and down two corridors, passing some guards and servants along the way. Quinlan risked a quick look up at the ceiling when he realized that the artifacts were directly above him. At least it wouldn't be hard to reach them, even if they had to cut through the floor . . .

Ahead of him, Dengar halted next to a door guarded by two Gamorreans. "The Prince is expecting us," he said.

They didn't budge.

Wrecker started to move forward, but Hunter signaled for him to wait. Then, from behind the door, an elderly voice called, "Have them give you the chest, Dengar!"

"Sure!" Wrecker said. "Here, Dengar."

Before Dengar was even ready, Wrecker hoisted the heavy chest effortlessly into the bounty hunter's arms. Grunting in surprise, Dengar staggered backwards, but caught his balance. He muttered something, shot a look at Wrecker, and approached the door, which the guards opened for him.

Quinlan stepped quickly to the side, but only just managed to catch a glimpse of the richly-carpeted floor before the door was slammed shut behind Dengar.

When he stepped back, the Gamorreans' pikes were lowered at him, and they were staring suspiciously.

The Jedi glanced between them for a few seconds, then raised a casual hand in greeting. "Hey, guys. How's life?"

There was no answer, which didn't surprise Quinlan at all. Gamorreans, even the ones who could speak Basic, were not the most talkative bunch, even if you caught them on a good day . . . which, if Quinlan went by his experience, wasn't often.

Quinlan glanced at his teammates, then wandered a few steps down the hall, keeping an eye on the guards as he moved. He was a little surprised to find Gamorreans guarding someone like the Prince. Usually rich people preferred guards who could think on their own.

Then again, maybe the Prince just wanted guards whose loyalty he didn't have to question. Gamorreans were good for that, because it would never come into their heads to betray someone, as long as that someone paid them.

Quinlan had always thought that in the world of crime, Gamorreans and Hutts went together splendidly. Hutts had no agility or real strength, Gamorreans had no brains. Hutts supplied the conniving brains, Gamorreans supplied the general thuggishness. After consideration, Quinlan decided he still disliked the Hutts more. Gamorreans would beat you up or try to kill you if they were told to, but it was usually Hutts who gave the orders.

Obi-Wan had scolded Quinlan for his attitude more than once. "Gamorreans are not brutes, Quinlan! They have a culture of their own, an entire society!" he would say, frowning in that disapproving way of his. Quinlan would only shrug. He figured that a culture built entirely around who could hit the hardest and kill the fastest, without any real thought involved, was not particularly worthy of honor.

As he turned and walked past Tech, he muttered, "But even Obi-Wan couldn't defend the Hutts."

Tech didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Quinlan could practically hear the short-circuit in his mind as he tried to figure out what had prompted that remark.

The door opened slightly. Dengar slipped out, and the guards lowered their pikes at the team as though to hold them back.

"The Prince wants to see the leader," Dengar said, gesturing at Hunter. "Leave your helmet and weapons here."

Hunter nodded, as though he'd expected as much.

Lounging against the wall, Quinlan watched as the sergeant handed his helmet, pistol, vibroblade, and what looked like a small explosive, to Wrecker. The Jedi was pretty sure that Hunter wouldn't be able to hide any weapons – then again, he probably wouldn't need them to take the Prince hostage.

"Hopefully, this doesn't take too long," Crosshair said.

"It shouldn't," Hunter said with a shrug.

"Hold still." Dengar ran a scanner over him, then stepped back with a nod. "Okay, all set. In you go. The rest of you, stay put."

Crosshair shifted, and Dengar sent him a suspicious look before turning to the Gamorreans. "Guards, if these men try to leave, or enter the room, the Prince wants them pinned to the wall."

One of the guards let out a grunting laugh and gestured with his pike.

"Exactly." Dengar went off down the hallway, whistling, while Crosshair and Wrecker glared after him.

The second Gamorrean opened the door for Hunter, and the sergeant shot a quick look back at his teammates before slipping inside.