Second, it made no sense for the droid to keep the bota himself. He'd be a fool to carry it into enemy territory where it could be lost to the last person on the planet he wanted to have it.

Dejah's reaction to his revelation about the bota rang true. He was positive that she'd known nothing of it before.

That left Jax and Den.

Den's protests to the contrary, Jax could hardly be expected to resist the temptation of taking the bota, but Rhinann suspected that I-Five-who was loyal to a fault-no doubt trusted the Jedi's professions of self-control. In fact, I-Five likely believed that if his a.s.sa.s.sination attempt failed, Jax having the bota would be the only way to salvage the operation.

Den was leaving. Dejah had been sure he'd already left, but the Sullistan had made it clear that his mind was made up. Perhaps it was I-Five's plan to have him take the bota with him wherever he was going. Certainly Rhinann could see a certain advantage to getting the substance away from people who were likely to come into close contact with Inquisitors, Darth Vader, or the Emperor. If the a.s.sa.s.sination plan went horribly awry, Den Dhur could pop out of hiding and get the bota to one of the Jedi or, failing that, use it as leverage to secure their release.

So which was it? The Jedi or the Sull.u.s.tan?

He suspected the Jedi and hoped for the Sull.u.s.tan, for surely it would be easier to get the substance away from the latter.

Rhinann considered his options. They were two: leave and forever give up the possibility of experiencing the Force, or stay and await an opportunity to remove the bota from whoever had it.

He had waited so long, borne so patiently with danger, served the "cause" so selflessly, that leaving now seemed a waste. Besides, escape was but an airspeeder ride away, thanks to a grateful soul within Black Sun whom he'd had occasion to befriend. The service came at a price, but it would be worth it. The airspeeded which would bear him to the s.p.a.ceport in less than an hour, was available at a moment's notice, day or night.

Stay, then. He might even be able to persuade the carrier of the bota that giving him the stuff in a dire situation would be the best way to preserve it. Now, if only a dire situation would present itself.

"You shouldn't be involved, Jax."

Jax kept his eyes and mind focused on the little field generator he was in the process of prying from the light sculpture on the living room of their abandoned conapt.

"I'm surprised at you, I-Five. You saw that hologram my father left..."

"Actually, I didn't. Lorn had put me in autonomic mode for its delivery. It was set to play when triggered by a certain phrase. One of the few ways I can still be manipulated like an ordinary droid."

"Whatever-you heard me describe it. How can you listen to that and expect me not to be involved? My father wasn't even a Jedi, and he went after a Sith warrior."

"And died." I-Five bit the words off as if saying them was painful. "I lost your father because of his foolish human heroics. I will not..."

"Five," Jax cut in. "If my father hadn't indulged in his foolish human heroics, if he'd let you go with him, you wouldn't have been on Drongar to get the bota ... and you wouldn't have been around to introduce me to him. Now let me finish this or we may find ourselves making small talk with the Inquisitors."

The droid subsided with a series of grumbles worthy of Rhinann. For some reason, it made Jax want to laugh. For all the danger they faced-which he had insisted on being an active partic.i.p.ant in-for all the complications they'd embroiled themselves in, he felt an absurd lightness of spirit.

It was due in part, of course, to Lorn Pavan's ghost-image in I-Five's holographic data files. He felt connected to that long-dead man. He was a member of a family. He had seen his father's face, heard his voice, and what had always been an abstraction to him had become real.

It raised questions in his mind, to be sure. Questions about the real necessity of removing Padawans from their families and creating a completely new context for them. Why couldn't the Jedi have family and Force? If they were successful in removing Palpatine-in killing Palpatine, he corrected, unwilling to indulge in euphemisms might there be a future Jedi Order in which Padawans were allowed both? A future in which there was enough allowance for diversity that even Gray Paladins might be willing to proudly call themselves Jedi Knights?

I-Five said, "Are you finished with that? You've been staring at that generator for exactly seventeen-point-oh-two seconds. May I remind you that we were to meet Pol Haus at oh eight hundred hours?"

Jax looked down at the gleaming object in his palm. He hadn't even noticed he'd removed it from the emitter array. He laughed.

"Yeah. Sorry. Lost in thought. I imagine Haus will wait for us if we're a little late. After all, he's kept us waiting on occasion." Jax pocketed the generator and followed I-Five to the rear exit of the conapt-an antigrav lift that went straight up to the docking stations.

I-Five shot a look back over one shoulder, a maneuver that required him to pivot his head almost entirely to the rear. "I wouldn't remind him of that if I were you."

Kaj was happy just to be in motion again-to be able to use his arms and legs for more than fencing with the stinger droid. He had felt a little naked at first, strolling along between Rhinann and Dejah with not a single light sculpture in sight. In fact he had been certain they must have misunderstood Jax when he said he thought Kaj didn't have to spend all his time in the light cage. But even the tired little Sull.u.s.tan had been of the opinion that it was okay for him to poke his nose out and explore "the digs," as he called them.

"But to go outside," Kaj protested. "That's not quite the same as just hanging out in here. I mean, in here I'm close enough to the shield to dive back inside."

"Have you felt the need to dive back inside?" Dejah had asked him. "You've been working with the Force, using it, exercising it. My senses tell me you don't feel the pressure you did to hold it in; that you aren't so afraid of an explosion." She'd smiled at him engagingly, and he had admitted that what she said was true.

And so Kaj let himself be talked into a sojourn to a small local bazaar where Dejah bought him roasted takhal nuts and some sweet ice to wash it down with. Rhinann, he understood, was using the opportunity to touch base with several of the team's street contacts to gather intel about what had been going on in the Zi-Kree Sector where the Inquisitors still prowled.

Kaj found this all very exciting, and by the time they were making their way back up from the local marketplace, he had become quite comfortable.

Working with Jax was good for him, he realized; he was gaining not merely knowledge but a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, even. He was on his way to becoming a Jedi. With the exception of that little explosion the day before, he'd been in complete control of his talent. Even Jax had said he was learning quickly.

He was having daydreams of battling at Jax's side, wielding a lightsaber the color of a twilight sky, of Hying in controlled leaps from cloudcutter to cloudcutter, when Dejah, walking placidly beside him, went suddenly stiff.

He stopped and looked up. "What?" he asked, looking at her face. She had paled and was staring into the oddly canted window of a storefront to their left.

She turned back to peer up the street behind them. "I thought... I thought I saw something."

"Could you he a little more unenlightening?" Rhinann asked.

She shot him an uneasy glance. "I thought I saw an Inquisitor-reflected in the window there." She nodded at the storefront.

Rhinann jerked his head around and followed her gaze back up the street. Kaj looked, too, feeling a horrid, cold tingle gliding up his spine. He saw several hovertrucks, some rickshaw speeders, and weavers, and a good many people of all species. He saw no Inquisitors.

He reached out tentatively with the Force-just a trickle-and probed their back trail. He was about to announce that Dejah had been mistaken when he felt it-the questing sense of another Force adept, seeking. Seeking him.

He withdrew his touch as if scalded. "She's right. There's at least one there. I felt him."

Dejah stared at him, horrified. "Did he feel you?"

"I don't know."

She grasped his arm and wheeled him about. With Rhinann panting and worrying behind them, they quickened their pace. But it was no good. Kaj knew as they rounded the corner onto the block that housed the smdio that that questing intelligence had felt his minute touch.

The Inquisitors were coming.

The studio was empty, right down to Kaj's little sanctum. And if that were not unsettling enough, the living quarters were vacant as well. They were also neat and tidy, something that did not tally with the idea of an Imperial home invasion. The doors were unbreached, the locks locked, and everything in its place.

"One message on the HoloNet," I-Five said, turning from the terminal in the studio. "Pol Haus, verifying that he'd be here, though possibly a bit late. Of course, I'd have to check the nodes in the individual rooms to be sure."

Jax gazed down at the droid from the gallery, feeling the beginnings of relief. "That's probably what spooked them-the thought of a visit from Pol Haus with Kaj here. They must have figured they should remove him until we're sure of Haus. I should have thought of it myself."

"Whistling in the dark, are we?"

"Doesn't that make sense to you?"

"Just because it makes sense doesn't mean that's the way it happened."

Jax closed his eyes and felt the room. No, there was nothing here. No fear. No residual ghost of the Force having been used ... He opened his eyes and looked at I-Five.

"If they'd been taken forcibly, Kaj would've shattered the place and sent out a blast of Force energy that I would have felt all the way from Poloda Place. They've taken him out to keep Haus from seeing him, that's all."

I-Five made a percussive sound not unlike an exasperated sigh. "As you said, it makes sense."

"Look, can we not indulge in this nonsensical behavior? I can hear you rolling your photoreceptors all the way up here."

"What nonsensical behavior?" the droid asked. "I'm not the Force-sensitive who's insisting on playing an active role in a plot in which having a Force-sensitive present is suicidal."

Jax only heard half of what I-Five said. The other half was drowned out by a silent scream that sent the Jedi reeling against the gallery rail.

Kaj!

Jax pulled himself upright and bolted for the studio doot; vaguely aware of I-Five calling his name. He approached the corner toward the antigrav lift in the outer corridor and felt the presence of another, advancing on the corner from the other side. Taking no chances, he drew and ignited the Sith blade, and cleared the corner wielding it in a two-handed grasp.

Pol Haus stared at him from the middle of the corridor, his hand hovering above his blaster. His eyes widened at the sight of the lightsaber in Jax's hands.

"Have I come at a bad time?"

Kaj stood frozen on the worn duracrete of the walkway, knowing there was no escape. For him, perhaps, but for the two people with him, who had no Force abilities, there could be only one outcome.

He remembered the night his parents had decided to send him away. Stormtroopers had come to the village of Imrai, and with them a single Inquisitor. He recalled his parents fear that his tiny, nascent display of Force sensitivity-a sensitivity that had first shown itself as an instinct for what was wrong or right with a food crop and an uncanny ability to empathize with and heal sick animals-would be noticed.

As clear as the scene on this dirty street was his memory of the moment he had seen his first Inquisitor. He and his mother and father had just exited the trading post in the village center, having bartered a portion of their fruit crop for machinery. His mother had looked up, seen the disturbance at the fringes of the village, and clutched his arm.

"Bey," she'd said-his father's name. Just that, no more, but the quiet terror in her voice had chilled Kaj's insides to absolute zero.

He had looked up just in time to catch the glance they exchanged over his head, had seen the naked fear in his mother's eyes, and the blaze of rage in his father's that quickly dimmed to despair.

Now he looked at Rhinann and Dejah and saw that same exchange of glances flash between them as he felt their fear.

No. They would not suffer because of him. He simply would not allow it to happen.

He turned to Dejah. "They're coming from two directions. There are two behind us, one straight ahead."

"Oh, demons of chaos!" moaned the Elomin. "We're cut off. We can't get back to the..."

"We can't go back to the studio anyway," Dejah told him tersely. "They'd follow us."

"You can," Kaj said. "I can't. It's me they want."

He glanced down the street, taking in the people, vehicles, storefronts, cross-alleys-the entire scene. He could see them all with incredible clarity, as if he had a hundred eyes and the mult.i.tasking brains of a Cerean. The Inquisitor ahead of them was high up and half a block away, but moving ever closer. The two behind were at street level and would come around the corner any moment.

"See that cafe three doors up across the street?" he asked.

Rhinann and Dejah nodded, following his gaze.

"It's really crowded. Go in there and mix. Between all the confusion and me, they won't notice you."

Rhinann was in motion before he'd finished speaking, but Dejah hung back, dread straining her crimson features. She put a hand on Kaj's arm. "Let me stay with you, Kaj," she begged. "I can use my abilities..."

He grinned fiercely. "I'm not gonna let them get that close. Now go! Please," he added.

She went.

Kaj flitted into the street, blocking himself from the eyes of the two Inquisitors behind by the simple expedient of falling into pace with a slow-moving hovertruck. If he was lucky, he could remain hidden in its lee until he bypa.s.sed the third Inquisitor's lofty position. He clamped down hard on his thoughts, his emotions, his impulse to use the Force. The words of the Jedi mantra cycled in his head: There is no emotion; there is peace.

He checked his pa.s.sive awareness of the third Inquisitor. Like a rock in a stream, the Inquisitor's raozin amulet parted the water of Kaj's regard, leaving a strange, warped shimmer in the world. He was almost past it, walking calmly in the shadow of the hovertruck and feeling a quivering elation, when someone stepped out of the doorway of the cafe.

It was the Twi'lek, Laranth Tarak. Surprised, Kaj stopped walking.

Laranth saw him, recognized him, and stepped out into the street, her brow furrowed with concern.

"Kajin, what are you doing out here alone? Where's Jax?"

"I'm not alone. Dejah and Rhinann were with me, but there are..."

She cut him off. "I can feel them." She glanced up and down the street. He saw her expression change as she glanced down the street behind him, and knew she was seeing them. He could almost sec them himself, reflected in her eyes.

She grasped his arm and spun him around, aiming him at the apothecary. "Walk," she murmured, then slipped her arm around his shoulders.

"There's one right above us," Kaj told her.

They were pa.s.sing the apothecary, still shielded from the two Inquisitors behind them by the lorry, when a figure in a shimmering, scarlet robe dropped out of thin air to block their path.

Kaj looked up into the face and felt as if a shaft of ice had been driven through his heart. The palp, burning eyes that stared back at him, triumph in their chill depths, belonged to a man he thought he had killed.

His reaction was swift and involuntary. Even as Laranth fired her blaster, Kaj flooded the street with a dam-burst of Force energy, throwing the Inquisitor a dozen meters. The blast from Laranth's weapon sizzled past the spot where he'd been standing and burned through the cargo compartment of the hovertruck. The lorry burst into flames.

Someone screamed, and the street scene dissolved into chaos.

Chapter Nineteen.

Jax's first view of the scene on Gallery Row was from inside the first-level entrance of their building. What he saw-and felt-made his blood run cold. People fled something that was going on farther up the block near the corner with a main cross-street-Rainbow Parkway it was called, though it had no park, and no rainbow had been seen by the citizens of this level of Coruscant for uncounted centuries.

Until now.

Now they saw a display of the Force that shot brilliant ribbons and pinwheels of power in every direction-an explosion of variegated energy near the corner of Rainbow Parkway and Gallery Row-an explosion being generated by more than one Force adept.

He hesitated, checking the street for angles of egress. He did not want to be seen coming out of this building or sensed coming from this direction. Pol Haus and I-Five caught up with him as he was considering his options.

"I take it we have a situation," Haus said.