"Everything is in place, Lord Eddels," the Muun croaked, handing a datapad to her Master. "Everything you will need is in here."

Zannah had never seen a Muun before, and she found something inherently off-putting about this one's appearance. He was tall enough to look Bane in the eye, but his head, body, and limbs were elongated and thin, as if he had been horribly stretched to reach his current height. His skin was pale, pasty white with a disconcerting hint of a sickly pinkish hue. His features were flat, his eyes and cheeks appeared sunken, the corners of his mouth turned down in a perpetual frown, and he didn't appear to have a nose. His head was hairless, and he wore drab, brown clothing. He looked extremely uncomfortable beneath Tatooine's twin suns, but he was too professional to give voice to his complaint.

Earlier, Bane had explained that this meeting in the sandy wasteland of the Dune Sea was the culmination of a plan set in motion nearly a year before, shortly after they had first touched down on Ambria. A plan she had inadvertently been the catalyst for. Scribbled in the back cover of the ma.n.u.script she had discovered and presented to her Master at the Sith camp on Ruusan had been a long list of cryptic numbers: anonymous accounts with the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

Lord Qordis, Bane told her, had been a collector of rare and expensive treasures. Over the years he had siphoned off an incredible fortune from the combined wealth ofKaan's Brotherhood of Darkness and secreted it away, drawing on it whenever he purchased another item to feed his avarice. With the Brotherhood gone, Bane was the only one left who knew about, and could lay claim to, those accounts. But material wealth had no appeal to her Master beyond what use he could put it to.

"Information is a commodity. It can be traded, sold, and purchased. And in the end, credits are only as valuable as the secrets they can buy."

Over the past year Bane had begun to spend the credits. Key administrative officials were bribed to gain access to cla.s.sified files.

Government spies and well-connected criminal figures were hired to be his agents. Using his newfound wealth, he carefully built a network of informants to be his eyes and ears across a hundred different worlds.

However, Bane never had any direct contact with any of these people. As the last of the Sith, it was vital that he remain shrouded in anonymity.

Everything he'd accomplished had been through the use of a broker-the Muun who now stood before them.

"You followed my instructions exactly?" Bane asked the Muun.

"Precisely, Lord Eddels. All payments will be made through tertiary accounts, completely untraceable to the source," the Muun a.s.sured him, "In return you will receive regular dispatches and a constant stream of legal and illegal information. Any instructions you wish to pa.s.s on to your agents will be delivered through secure messaging services.

Completely anonymous."

"And no one else knows I am involved?"

"You are well aware of my reputation" the Muun reminded him. "I pride myself on discretion. That is why people like you come to me, Lord Eddels."

"Then our business here is done"

Glancing briefly down at Zannah, the Muun turned and made his way slowly across the sand toward his waiting ship. The young girl watched, eagerly antic.i.p.ating the manner of his death. The idea that her Master would allow the Muun to leave this meeting alive never entered her mind. He alone knew the ident.i.ty of the individual responsible for creating the galaxywide web of spies and informants. He alone had seen Bane's face.

The Muun reached his ship without incident and climbed aboard. She continued to watch as the engines flared to life and the vessel began to climb in the sky. When it disappeared beyond the horizon unharmed, she turned to her Master in disbelief, "You let him live?"

"He still has value to us" Bane answered.

"But he's seen you! He knows who you are!"

"He knows only as much as he needed to: a wealthy man using the name Lord Eddels hired him to set up an anonymous information network. He has no knowledge of who I really am or what my true purpose might be. And he has no knowledge of where or how to find me unless I contact him with a location for another meeting."

Zannah recalled a story her Master had once shared with her about a healer on Ambria named Caleb. Bane, near death, had come across the healer and ordered the man to help him. But Caleb, sensing the power of the dark side in her Master, had refused. Ultimately Bane had compelled Caleb's obedience by threatening the life of his daughter. Once the Dark Lord was healed, he had taken no action against the man who had dared to defy him. The healer had power, and her Master knew that the value of letting him live outweighed the risks-and petty pleasure-of ending his life.

"No purpose in his death," Zannah muttered, chewing her lip thoughtfully...

"Rainah can provide us with the exact times and locations of Chancellor Valorum's schedule" Kel explained to the rest of the small group. "When his shuttle touches down, we'll be there waiting for him."

"He'll have guards," Paak warned.

"Only his personal security detail," Zannah countered. "Anything more would draw unwanted attention."

"He wants to keep his arrival here secret," Kel added. "The Senate refuses to officially acknowledge that separatist movements even exist, so his mission has been cla.s.sified as a personal visit."

"Three days is too soon," Cyndra objected. "We need more time to prepare."

"Everything we need is right here" Kel replied. "We have the weapons, and we're all trained to use them. We know where and when the Chancellor is coming. What else is there?"

"An order from Hetton," Paak muttered.

Kel turned on him angrily. "Do we really need Helton's permission? Are we children? Are we incapable of acting on our own?"

"He's our leader," Paak muttered sullenly. "He tells us what to do."

"So does the Republic Senate," Zannah chimed in. "Isn't this the very thing you're fighting against? Obedience to a master-any master-is still slavery."

She said the words with utter conviction even though she didn't believe them. At the same time, she reached out with the Force to touch the minds of everyone in the room. It was possible to use the dark side to dominate another's will, but that would not serve her purpose here. The effects of mental domination would begin to fade after a few hours. By the time of Chancellor Valorum's arrival, any direct influence she exerted over Kel and his friends would be completely gone.

Zannah preferred a more subtle and insidious approach. Instead of using the Force to bend them to her will, she was gently prodding their collective psyche, pushing their thought patterns to make them more emotional, more aggressive. By itself the process was useless, but combined with persuasive words to further stir the blood, the effects could be more powerful-and more permanent-than the brute force of simple mind control.

However, the words couldn't come from her. She was a stranger here; they didn't trust her. Their natural instincts would be to reject her arguments; in their artificially induced hyperaggressive state they would quickly turn against her. They needed to be convinced by someone they knew. Someone like Kel.

"You say you want independence," the handsome Twi'lek told them. "You say you will fight for your freedom. Yet when I offer you this chance, you want to slink away like a Kath hound banished from its pack."

"We should wait for the Armistice Celebrations," Cyndra insisted. "We need to stick to the original plan."

"A plan is nothing until you act on it," Kel replied. "We talk about what we will do in the future, but when the Armistice Celebrations come, how easy will it be to find another excuse to wait yet again?

"Secret meetings will not bring change to the galaxy. Plans alone will not make the Senate tremble or bring the Republic to its knees. We must take action, and the time for action is now!"

Zannah recognized her words being spoken with Kel's voice. She had fed them to him over weeks of intimate conversations, planting the seeds of ideas, then watching them grow. Now he spoke the words with pa.s.sion and fire, delivering them as if he truly believed they were his own.

Bane would be pleased. This was true power: to twist another to your purpose, yet have him believe he was in control. Kel was her puppet, but his pride and ego had blinded him to the strings she used to make him dance.

"We stand on the precipice of a momentous event," he continued. "In three days we will strike a great blow against the tyrants of the Republic, the first step in our long and glorious march to independence and true freedom!"

A spontaneous cheer of a.s.sent rose up from the room, and Zannah knew Kel had won them over. Only Paak and Cyndra showed any signs of reluctance, but as the rest of the group began working on the details of the plan to capture Chancellor Valorum, even they set aside their hesitations.

The meeting lasted long into the night, and when it was over she and Kel went back to the small apartment she had rented as part of her cover story.

"You were magnificent tonight," she breathed.

"This is the last time I can see you until all this is over," Kel warned.

"The others are counting on me. I can't have any distractions."

As an answer she reached out and grabbed his wrist, then pulled him close in a tight embrace.

He left the next morning. Zannah kissed him good-bye and went back to sleep. Later, she rolled out of bed and began to gather her things. Her mission here was over; she knew she would never see Kel alive again. It was time to return to Ambria.

The camp was in ruins. The tents were leveled, their canopies shredded and torn. Wooden supply crates had been smashed into sawdust and splinters, their contents tossed and scattered on the wind. Hundred-kilogram fuel cells lay strewn about the campsite, some thrown fifty meters from where they had been stored.

The ground was littered with debris and marred by dozens of still-smoldering black scorch marks Zannah recognized as the remnants of a terrible storm of unnatural lightning. The air still crackled with the power and energy of the dark side that made her tingle in fear and antic.i.p.ation.

It was easy enough to guess what had happened. Bane had failed yet again in his attempt to create a Holocron, then in a blind rage lashed out at the world around him with all the power of the Force.

If she had been here when it happened, Zannah wondered, could she have stopped him? Would she even have been able to survive?

She saw Bane seated on the far side of the camp, his back to her as he stared out to the horizon, meditating on his failure. He turned to face her as she approached, rising up to his full two-meter height so that he towered above her. His clothes had been torn and burned away, revealing the full scope of the orbalisk infestation. Hundreds of the creatures clung to him; except for his face and hands, his body was now completely covered. He looked as if he were wearing a suit of armor fashioned from the hard, oblong sh.e.l.ls of dead crustaceans. Yet she knew that beneath the sh.e.l.ls, the parasites were still alive, feeding on him.

Bane claimed the orbalisks enhanced his power, granting him unnatural strength and healing abilities. Yet witnessing the aftermath of his failure with the Holocron, Zannah wondered at what cost those abilities came. What use was greater power if it could not be controlled?

To her relief the fury seemed to have pa.s.sed, and Zannah knew better than to ask him about it. Instead she offered news of her mission.

"It's done. When Chancellor Valorum's shuttle lands, Kel and his followers will be waiting for him."

"You have done well," Bane answered.

As always, she felt a surge of pride and accomplishment at her Master's praise. But her satisfaction was tempered by memories of Kel, and the knowledge that he was lost to her forever.

"Is there any chance they will succeed?" she asked.

"No," Bane said after a moment's consideration, "Then what purpose do they serve?" she demanded, finally giving in to her frustration. "I don't understand why you send me on missions like this!

Why waste all this time and effort if we know they're going to fail!"

"They don't need to succeed to be of value to us " Bane answered. "The separatists are only a distraction. They draw the attention of the Senate, and blind the eyes of the Jedi Council."

"Blind them?"

"The Jedi have surrendered themselves to the will of the Senate. They have let themselves sink into the mora.s.s of politics and bureaucracy. The Republic seeks a single, unified government to maintain peace throughout the galaxy, and the Jedi have been reduced to nothing more than a tool to make it happen.

"Each time radicals strike against the Republic, the }edi Council is called upon to take action. Resources are wasted on quelling rebellions and uprisings, keeping their focus away from us."

"But why must the separatists always fail?" Zannah asked. "We could help them succeed without risking exposure!"

"If they succeed, they will gain support," Bane explained. "Their power and influence will grow. They will become harder to manipulate and control. It is possible they might even become strong enough to bring down the Republic itself."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Zannah asked.

"The Republic keeps the Jedi in check. It maintains control and imposes order across thousands of worlds. But if the Republic falls, a score of new interstellar governments and galactic organizations will rise. It is far easier to manipulate and control a single enemy than twenty.

"That it is why we must seek out radical separatist groups, identify the ones that have the potential to become true threats, then encourage them to strike before they are ready. We must exploit them, playing them off against the Republic. We must let our enemies weaken one another while we stay hidden and grow strong.

"One day the Republic will fall and the Jedi will be wiped out," he a.s.sured her. "But it will not happen until we are ready to seize that power for ourselves."

Zannah nodded, though her mind was reeling as she tried to comprehend the true complexity of her Master's intricate and convoluted political machinations. She thought back to all her past missions, trying to see how each one played a part in his plans.

"You have never questioned your missions before," Bane noted. He didn't sound angry, but rather curious.

She didn't want to tell him about Kel. Even though she had accomplished everything Bane had demanded of her, she knew he would view her feelings for the Twi'lek as a sign of weakness.

"Even if I didn't understand the purpose behind my missions, I never had reason to doubt your wisdom, Master" she answered, realizing she could turn his question to her advantage.

"Yet you doubt me now?"

She took a long, slow look around, letting her eyes linger over the wreckage of the camp surrounding them.

"I've never seen you lose control of your power like this before," she whispered, shrouding her deceit in a kernel of truth. "I feared the orbalisks could be impairing your judgment. I feared they might have finally driven you mad."

Bane didn't answer right away, and when he did his voice was short and gruff. "I control the orbalisks. They do not control me."

"Of course, Master," she apologized. But she knew from his reaction that she had successfully planted the seed of doubt. Attempting to manipulate her Master was a dangerous game, but it was a risk she had to take. If the orbalisks drove him into another rage, he might kill her. Convincing Bane to seek out some way to rid himself of the infestation was a matter of self-preservation.

"Clean up the camp," Bane commanded. "Then head back to Serenno. We need more supplies."

She acquiesced with a bow and began gathering up debris as Bane resumed his meditations. As she slowly restored some semblance of order to their camp, Zannah began to see that the doubts she had planted in Bane's mind could have one other valuable, long-term benefit.

It was inevitable she would one day challenge him for the t.i.tle of Sith Master, but Bane was incredibly strong-both physically and in the Force.

Encased in a suit of living armor that augmented his powers and protected him from virtually all known weapons, he was nearly invincible.

Convincing Bane to shed his...o...b..lisk coat, Zannah realized, might be the only real hope she had of defeating him and achieving her destiny.

Chapter 12.

Johun shifted in his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position and thinking how much easier it had been to bear the burden of starship travel in his youth. But he was no longer a teenager on the cusp of manhood. He was taller, for one thing-a full 1.85 meters in height. And his slight frame had become corded with taut, wiry muscle. The only remnant of the young man he had been was the blond hair that still hung down to his shoulders-a sharp contrast with the scruffy black beard that covered the line of his jaw.

He shifted again and glared pointedly at Tarsus Valorum, resting easily in the seat across from him. The Chancellor was in his sixties now, though apart from a slight graying of his hair around the temples he looked very much as he had the first day Johun had met him. Tarsus met the Jedi's fierce gaze with a smile and a shrug... the closest thing Johun would ever get to an apology for having to endure the long interstellar flight aboard this second-rate vessel.

The New Dawn was an Emissary-cla.s.s shuttle-serviceable, but far from luxurious. It would have been a simple matter for Tarsus Valorum, former Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, to request a more extravagant ship for his personal use: one of the new Cygnus Theta-cla.s.s shuttles, or possibly even the magnificent Consular s.p.a.ce cruisers so popular among the diplomatic community. Given his previous position, there was little doubt the Senate would have approved the funds for the purchase. But Valorum had insisted that the tiny New Dawn, with her two-person crew, pa.s.senger seating for six, and Cla.s.s Six hyperdrive, was more than adequate for his needs now that he had officially stepped down from his position.

It was a small gesture of modesty and practicality that spoke volumes about the man himself. Over the years Johun had observed the Chancellor in public and in private, and the more he got to know him the more respect he had for him. But that wasn't to say the man couldn't be stubborn and even obstinate, as he'd proved when he refused the Senate's offer of an honor guard accompaniment for his diplomatic missions.

A retired politician is no threat to anybody, he'd argued. And I'm certainly not important enough anymore for others to put themselves in harm's way for my sake.

Johun still traveled at his side, but that was by his choice, not the Chancellor's. He knew how valuable Valorum remained to the Republic, and he knew there were enemies who would do him harm if given the chance. He had tried several times to convince Tarsus to travel with more security, with no success. So until his stubborn friend agreed to a personal guard detail, Johun was determined to accompany him on every mission.

"I hope we get there soon," Johun muttered, giving voice to his discomfort.

"You could always enter one of your meditative trances to pa.s.s the time "

the Chancellor said jokingly. "You're not one for idle conversation anyway."