"I suspect I was simply an easy target," Sal said, bitterness dripping from each word. "My financial circ.u.mstances made me vulnerable, and Palpatine, while by no means in desperate straits, like all politicians preferred to use someone else's money to finance his governmental takeover." He smiled a hard, painful smile. "You know what they say: 'It's not personal-it's just business,' " Den finished. Yes, they'd all heard those words before.

"And I have, I must admit, used, if not those very words, certainly the spirit behind them, more than once. But I was never stupid enough to cross the government." He shrugged. "Perhaps it was that very hesitancy on my part that made me seem easy prey. Whatever the reason, the new regime ruined me. Worse than that, they blacklisted me and made it impossible for me to recover. Even Black Sun wouldn't do business with me, which has implications I'm reluctant to think about." He hesitated, then added, "It wasn't just the businesses, though the G.o.ds of misfortune know how devastating that was. No,I also lost my family-my mate, my children."

"Ah," said I-Five. "Ironic, isn't it, how fickle people can be. Even those you expect to be loyal."

"It wasn't fickleness," Tuden Sal said with some asperity. "It was fear. I didn't just lose my visibility, I lost the ability to dare visibility. There is still a bounty on my head, I'm sure of it, though I've never been able to confirm it. When someone attempted to kidnap my youngest child, I sent my family offworld. I had no choice."

"And you've been living down here, lying low?" Jax shook his head. "I hope you weren't hoping to hide out with us. I've got a price on my head, too. And like you, I don't know why."

"I'm through lying low," announced the Sakiyan. "I'm fighting back. I've joined the Whiplash, which is how I came to find you." He nodded at Jax.

"You joined the Whiplash?" Jax repeated. "For the purpose of finding I-Five?"

Den well understood the skepticism in Jax's voice. The Whiplash-the underground organization of which Den and his companions were a part-was dedicated to undermining the Empire's doings and rescuing its victims. It was an organization that thrived on secrecy to the extent that its operatives often didn't communicate openly for long periods of time, were informed of missions on a need-to-know basis, and did not admit new "members" without having first subjected them to stiff scrutiny.

"No," the Sakiyan answered. "For the purpose of fighting the Empire. Finding you and I-Five was serendipitous. I had given up on finding you. In fact, I was convinced you were dead and the droid had been broken up for parts by some yokel who had no idea what he was holding. I would never have found you if my first a.s.signment with the Whiplash hadn't introduced me to Laranth Tarak."

Jax reacted visibly to the mention of the Twilek's name, but before he could do much more than gape like a Sull.u.s.tan Fluke fish, I-Five interjected: "Which begs the question-why have you found us?"

The Sakiyan was suddenly quivering with unwholesome excitement. Or at least the glint in his pale eyes made it seem unwholesome to Den.

"I have a mission for I-Five. One for which his special modifications-specifically his concealed weaponry and his lack of certain . .. standard inhibitions-would suit him ideally."

"And that would be?" asked I-Five.

"You, my old friend," said the Sakiyan, smiling for the first time, "would make the ideal a.s.sa.s.sin."

"You want I-Five to a.s.sa.s.sinate somebody?" Jax shook his head. "That's not the sort of mission the Whiplash usually involves itself in. We protect people, extricate them from unhealthy situations, find them safe pa.s.sage offworld. We don't indulge people's vendettas."

"This could be seen as something in the nature of a personal mission," Sal admitted. "Though I a.s.sure you it will serve all lovers of freedom, including the Jedi. in ways you can't imagine. With I-Five's modifications and the anonymity that comes with being a droid . . . well, there couldn't be a more perfect liquidator."

"Now, just a moment here." Den raised his hands and slid down from the window embrasure, noting as he did that the wan light falling through it from outside-a weak trickle of half-dead sunlight from above and artificial illumination from below-made his shadow on the ferrocrete floor loom many times his real height. He was glad of that, because he needed to feel bigger just now. Tuden Sal's last words had turned his insides to quivering gel. "I-Five, an a.s.sa.s.sin? What kind of sick nonsense is that? He may be just an anonymous automaton to you, but to me he's ... he's ..."

Den hesitated, realizing that he had never articulated what I-Five was to him. He also realized that the droid's ocular units were trained right on him. "He's my friend, okay? And Jax's friend. And we don't want to see him pur in harm's way with the callous disregard you'd show a-a ..."

"A machine?" finished I-Five with a tone of voice that in an organic would have been accompanied by a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah. He admitted it himself not a minute ago, Five. You're not a programmable toy. We can't just pump you full of code and send you into a dangerous situation as if you were some expendable piece of equipment. You have volition. You're a person."

Den felt those words in that moment as perhaps he never had before, knowing to the soles of his boots that he would not-could not-send I-Five into a potentially no-win situation alone. A swift chill cascaded down from the crown of his head. And just what did that imply? That he would volunteer to go along?

I-Five's gleaming metal face was, as always, expressionless. "Yes," the droid said, "as you point out, I have volition. Which means that I have both the capacity and the right to determine, in consultation with the team, of course"-he tilted his head toward Jax-"what missions I will or will not undertake. But..." He hesitated; something he rarely, if ever, did. "Your concern is noted, Den, and the sentiment behind it mutual."

I-Five then shifted his attention to Tuden Sal so suddenly that Den felt as if a physical support had been knocked from under him.

"Obviously before we can entertain the idea of such a mission," I-Five told the Sakiyan, "we need to under stand it more fully and weigh its potential for good or ill. Who, precisely, do you want me to a.s.sa.s.sinate?"

Tuden Sal smiled, and there was an almost mischievous glint in his eye now. "Allow me to test your knowledge of arcane historical esoterica. Have you ever heard of the Monarchomechs?"

I-Five did not hesitate. "Yes. An obscure sect of fanatics out in the Eastern Expansion around four hundred standard years ago. They opposed the absolute monarchy of their system of worlds, and promulgated tyrannicide. Like the B'omarr monks of Tatooine, they were not droids but cyborgs-essentially encapsulated organic brains in robotic bodies. The name, in Middle Yutanesc, is a play on the portmanteau, meaning 'killers of monarch." I-Five's voice was somewhat more subdued, almost speculative, as he continued, "You want me to terminate Emperor Palpatine."

Chapter Three.

"I beseech your courtesy," said Haninum Tyk Rhinann as he seated himself in a formchair adjacent to the couch on which the Sakiyan sat. "I cannot possibly have heard you right. You want I-Five to a.s.sa.s.sinate Emperor Palpatine?"

"Yes. That is essentially correct."

Rhinann turned his head slightly to look at Jax, who stood behind the couch, his face devoid of expression, lacking the Force, the Elomin had no way of knowing what the Jedi thought of this mad idea-though the very fact of his having allowed the Sakiyan to present it proved that he did not utterly reject it ... as he should have, in the Elomin's opinion, had he even a milliliter of common sense.

"You realize, of course, that a.s.sa.s.sinating the Emperor is not exactly a new idea," Rhinann went on.

The Sakiyan nodded. "Yes."

"And that it has been tried-with disastrous results, I might add-by people with far greater resources than we have."

Tuden Sal raised a stubby digit. "I beg to differ. None of the Emperor's would-be a.s.sa.s.sins had any of the resources we possess. True, they had material means perhaps even more than what you command." He nodded at Dejah Duare, who had seated herself at the far end of the couch, a frown wrinkling her crimson brow. "But they did not have a Jedi Knight in their number, or the intelligence resources of the Whiplash, or the invaluable services of someone so recently close to Lord Vader as yourself. And they most certainly did not possess a droid with I-Five's special talents."

Rhinann blinked at the Sakiyan. All that he had said was true-which made it no less insane an idea. Certainly, with Rhinann's knowledge of the internal workings of the Imperial Security Bureau they might get close to the Emperor's foremost champion, and thence to the Emperor himself. And conceivably, with I-Five's unique qualities they might be able to make it all the way to the core of Imperial operations . . . but no, it was still insane, there was no other term for it. If the droid were to be captured, his memory banks could and would be scoured for information that would bring down the nascent resistance in its entirety.

And as for what would happen to Rhinann himself he trembled at the thought. The most meticulous and thorough of the Emperor's truth scan agents would happily don metaphoric duralumin-toed shock hoots and kick their way through the gardens of his mind and memories, merrily trampling all the delicate neuronal sprouts and branchings underfoot until naught but a b.l.o.o.d.y marsh remained. Rhinann closed his eyes, wishing he weren't cursed with such a vivid imagination.

He sighed gustily through his nose, rattling his tusks. "No," he said. "This is not to be contemplated. It's nerfbrained, preposterous, absurd. The risks are simply unacceptable."

"And once again, to the astonishment of all, I find myself agreeing with the tall, scraggly critter in the weskit." This came from the Sull.u.s.tan journalist, perched back up in his usual spot in the window embrasure. "I've thought about this sixty different ways and every one of them looks too risky by half. If anything happened to I-Five..."

"I-Five?" Rhinann repeated in disbelief. "All you're worried about is the droid? Have you no conception of what it would mean to the Whiplash were I-Five to fall into enemy hands?"

"Or to the remaining Jedi," said Jax quietly.

"If there are any," added Rhinann.

"The droid," said I-Five with subtle emphasis, "would destroy his memory core if he felt his position was compromised. I'm more concerned that failure on my part would bring severe consequences for Jax or anyone else who might be caught facilitating my mission. For that reason, if I do this, I wish to do it alone. Completely alone."

Five!" Den objected. "That's ridiculous. You can't go it alone on a mission like this. You'll need intel, backup, an escape corridor..."

"I can provide my own intel by slicing into the HoloNet within the Imperial complex, thank you very much. I can provide my own backup as well-after all, who expects a protocol droid to be outfitted with hidden laser pistols and other defensive systems? I can also, I trust, create my own escape corridor." The droid turned to Jax. "I would argue that one of the chief reasons for the failure of other a.s.sa.s.sination attempts was that there were too many people and too many resources committed to the effort. The more individuals there are engaged on the ground in such an undertaking, the more points of discovery there are."

Tuden Sal's gaze was riveted on the droid's gleaming metal face. "What do you propose?"

"Between myself and Rhinann," said I-Five, "I expect we can gain sufficient knowledge of Palpatine's itinerary' that we can safely gauge his private locations based on his more public appearances. Once I know where he's going to he, it should he a simple matter of disguising my virtual ident.i.ty such that when I access Imperial nodes on the HoloNet, I do so with an alias."

"A virtual disguise," Jax murmured.

"Precisely."

"Which is fine, except that you're a discontinued model," argued Den. "You may be able to fool the 'Net, but you're still a Five series droid. I'd bet good credits there aren't too many of those near the Emperor. No doubt he's got the newest, shiniest protocol droids Imperial creds can buy. Am I right, Rhinann?"

The Elomin nodded. "Exactly right. No offense, I-Five, but you are a bit of an antique."

The droid actually managed to look offended. "That's as it may be, but it's not an insurmountable obstacle. The model created to replace the I-Fivewhycue series differs only in a few minor external details. For example, the ocular units are smaller and use a halogen light emission system with a characteristically blue-white radiance; the chest plate has been modified to include a repulsor unit. And lastly, the external bus couplings have been streamlined. These arc things it should be fairly easy to cosmetically adapt in my own appearance. And of course, I'll need a good polish."

"All easily arranged," said Tuden Sal. "Even the polish."

"In that case, throw in an oil bath and a circuit board tune-up."

"Done."

"While you're at it, you might consider picking up the tab for our memorial services," Dejah Duare said, speaking for the first time since their impromptu meeting began.

"You sound as if you're planning a costume for a masquerade," Dejah continued. "Whether I-Five goes in alone or not, potentially he could focus Imperial attention on us and on the Whiplash."

"I tend to agree with Dejah," Jax said.

"There's a big surprise," muttered Den under his breath.

Jax ignored the Sull.u.s.tan's grousing. "This is something we need to think through very carefully."

"I don't think so," Dejah continued, focusing her entire attention on the Jedi. "I don't think so at all. It doesn't deserve to be thought through." She had clasped her hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in what seemed almost a gesture of supplication. "Please, Jax. Don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. Let this go. Tell this man no."

Tuden Sal turned to look up at the Jedi. "What does she mean-your personal feelings?"

Jax opened his mouth to answer, but I-Five beat him to the draw. "There is every chance that Emperor Palpatine though only a Senator at the time-ordered his father's death. I should think you'd know that better than anyone here," he added wryly. "After all, you were the last person to see him alive. He must have told you what he was planning to do after he turned me off."

The Sakivan's bronze skin darkened further-a dusky flush rising from his neck to his cheeks. "He was going after the Zabrak. I figured then..."

"That he was as good as dead?" asked I-Five.

"I don't excuse my behavior," Sal returned with some asperity. "What I did then was stupid, shortsighted, and, yes, a betrayal of a good friend. What I do now is in aid of making up for it."

"My father is dead..." Jax began.

"Which nothing I did or did not do could have changed. Regardless of my actions. Lorn Pavan would have gone after the Sith and died. Even had he not, Palpatine or his acolyte would have eventually learned he was still alive, and killed him. Believe me-that's the way these people are. If I've learned nothing else, I've learned that." Sal shook his head. "My people's ancestors were warriors, but they can't match-no one in the galaxy can match-humans for sheer bloodthirstincss. #That said . . ." Tuden Sal hesitated, seeming to age by a decade in the measure of breaths he took. "If I had taken I-Five to the Jedi as promised, it is possible . . ." His voice faltered to a stop.

" That the Jedi might not have been destroyed," Jax finished for him. "That all of galactic history might have been changed for the better by one small action of yours."

"Yes." Sal's voice was very soft.

There was a moment of silence in which Dejah Duare looked from the Sakiyan to Jax to I-Five with an expression of incredulity on her pretty face. When she spoke, her words seemed to be for Jax alone. "Well, there it is. Yet another good reason not to involve yourself in this absurd, hopeless plot. For all you know you could be the last Jedi on the planet."

Jax shook his head. "I'm not."

"The last real Jedi, then. Yes, I know you think the world of the Twi'lek, but she's not Temple-trained."

"That doesn't make her less a Jedi."

Dejah blinked at him, obviously taken aback. "That's irrelevant. You're missing my point-or dodging it intentionally. If this plot were to be discovered and I-Five captured, it would lead straight back to you. It might enable the Emperor to snuff out the light of the Jedi entirely."

"The light of the Jedi?" Jax repeated. "Is that what I'm supposed to be? Well then, should I hide out, doing nothing, until I die at a ripe old age . . . having done nothing?"

"New Force-sensitives will be born," said I-Five philosophically. "Someone has to train them if they are not to fall to the dark side."

Jax looked up, startled.

By the nine G.o.ds of fury, Rhinann thought, has he really never contemplated that before Or did it just stun him coming from a soulless hunk of metal?

"Which," I-Five continued, "is all the more reason that, if I were to undertake this ... mission, you should be as far away from me as possible."

Rhinann blinked at the tone of the droid's voice. Was that really wistfulness? The shadow of impending loss? He shook himself. "I think it's all the more reason," he said to I-Five, "for you to forgot this 'mission' and do what you're best at: watching his back." He tilted his horned head toward Jax.

Tuden Sal cleared his throat. "As I-Five so aptly pointed out, he is an independent being."

"With an off switch." muttered the Elomin.

"An independent being," repeated Sal, "with the capacity to make his own decisions."I-Five turned to Jax. "I do have that capacity, but inthis ease I'd like to hear the opinions of all concerned parties. Especially yours, Jax. In making this decision,I'll give your vote the most weight."

"Vote?" Dejah let out a peal of false laughter. "If we're to vote, I vote no!"

"As do I," said Rhinann.

"Ditto," said Den.

All eyes turned to Jax.

He met each gaze in turn-last of all, the droid's-then shook his head. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I just don't know." He glanced down at the Zeltron. "I think I need to go someplace where I can think this through."

And I, thought Rhinann, need to go someplace where I'm not so likely to he killed.

Probus Tesla knew the peace of the Force..

He had surrendered himself fully to its dark currents and, in moments such as this, he felt the power of those currents moving about him and within him, buoying him up, tugging at him, washing through him.

Cleansing him.

The Force was contentment. It was purpose. It was all. To be an instrument of justice, to believe absolutely in the righteousness of that justice, conferred great power . . . and without the concomitant responsibility. He was a young man, barely into his twenties; young enough that power without accountability was a heady combination. Young enough that the speed of his rise through the Inquisitorius filled him with fierce, hot pride. To be picked out of a literal army of applicants and made the personal factotum of the Dark Lord himself-it was a dream conic true. To hone his power under the tutelage of Darth Vader was to drink from water very pure, very close to the Source, indeed.

Now he stood in Vader's presence and felt that purity of power flowing over him in thrilling waves. It was all he could do not to grin drunkenly with pleasure, but he kept his face composed and his spirit calm as he received his orders from his master.

In fact, he noted with bemus.e.m.e.nt, his mentor seemed less serene than he was. The Dark Lord had been pacing when Tesla had entered the room, and had not ceased doing so in the time the young Inquisitor had stood silently, awaiting his lord's pleasure.