Chapter 13

All too soon, Darsha Assant found herself back in the underbelly of Coruscant.

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

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

The ways of the Force were nothing if not unpredictable.

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

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

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

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

When they were ten meters above the pavement, Master Bondara turned on the landing lights. The section of street below them was illuminated. Darsha, looking over the side, could see shadowy figures, long conditioned to prefer darkness to light, scuttling away.

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

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

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

So there it was, she thought. Oddly enough, now that she knew hope was dead, she did not feel the crushing sorrow that she had anticipated. Instead she felt a surprising sense of relief. The worst had happened, and now she would find a way to deal with it. As with most looming disasters, the reality was almost anticlimactic compared to the dreadful anticipation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Through the door stepped a nightmare.

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

" None shall survive. "

Lorn was completely frozen to the spot, unable to offer any resistance, as the killer stepped toward him. His eyes shone like twin suns as he raised the lightsaber.

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

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

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

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

" Away from there! " I‑ Five shouted back.

Lorn wanted to protest that it wouldn't make any difference; he had looked into the eyes of the Sith, and he had seen his doom there, as plainly as the tattooed whorls that surrounded those eyes‑ an implacable fate that would hunt him down no matter how far and how fast he ran. But he had no breath in him to speak no breath left for running either, but the fear of what he had seen in those eyes kept him running anyway.

Maul saw his quarry slip past him, but could do nothing to stop their flight while his attention was oc‑ cupied by the two Gamorreans. Using one hand to spin the lightsaber in a blazing pattern that blocked the particle beam bursts, he gestured with his free hand, plucking the invisible lines of the Force and sending reverberations that caused the blasters to fly from the surprised guards' grips.

Before they had time to recover from their surprise, Maul leapt forward, skewering first one and then the other with quick, deadly thrusts. The lifeless Gamorreans sagged to the floor, and Maul wheeled quickly about to deal with the Hurt.

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

Yanth had not waited to see the results of his attack. His massive bulk moved rapidly, slithering through the singed and blackened credit notes that littered the floor, the holocron crystal still clutched in one hand. He had almost reached the exit when Maul leapt, executing a twisting forward flip that covered the length of the large chamber and deposited him directly in front of the Hutt.

Before Yanth could recover from his surprise, Darth Maul plunged one of the lightsaber's blades deep into the Hurt's chest. The stench of burning flesh and blubber filled the room. Yanth died with a croaking gurgle, the gelid mass of his body sagging bonelessly to the floor.

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

He reached the street and paused, looking first one way, then another for his prey. Pavan and the droid were not in sight. Maul gritted his teeth. They would not be permitted to slip away again! One way or another, he was determined to end this chore. It had already gone on far too long.

He sought the dark side once more, bade it illuminate the path his quarry had taken. Then he began to move, shoving his way through the hapless press of street people.

Though his appearance alone was enough to cause most of the hard cases on the street to give him a wide berth, his progress was still too slow. Enough of this! Maul thought. He unleashed the dark side, using the Force like a battering ram against those who got in his way.

Maul angled to the middle of the narrow avenue. His speeder bike was parked not far away; he could activate the slave circuit by remote control and have it here within a few minutes at most. But there was an even quicker way to overtake them. He called upon the Force, moving easily five times faster than a human could travel at a dead run. There was no way they could escape him now.

Within moments he was in sight of his quarry. Another few seconds and he would catch up to them‑ and then the lightsaber would do its work once more, slashing through metal and flesh, and at last bringing this dreary task to an end.

He grinned and lengthened his gargantuan stride even further, sailing over the fire‑ blackened husk of a parked landspeeder. Pavan and the droid looked back and saw him coming; he could see the fear in the human's face. It was most satisfying to witness.

One more leap, and both of them would be his.

And then an invisible hammer struck him in mid‑ leap, pounding him to the ground. What was this? Who dared to interfere? Maul looked up, saw a skycar settling to the ground alongside Pavan and the droid. The repulsor beams from its undercarriage had struck him down when the vehicle passed directly over him. The skycar was less than five meters away; he could see the driver and his passenger clearly. They were Jedi.