Their prisoner pointed deeper into the dark alley. "This is the way," he said woodenly.

Lorn glanced at Darsha. She nodded. Lorn took the lead.

Darsha couldn't believe she'd missed the relays. She'd been so focused on the idea of living enemies that it hadn't occurred to her to check for mechanical ones. She had to make sure that it didn't happen again.

She sent her senses questing out ahead of them, feeling for living and nonliving eyes. Just around the corner was a security cam. Lorn stepped around the bend before she could call out, but it didn't matter-she had it handled. It took a little more concentration to defeat a mechanical device, but it certainly wasn't beyond her abilities. She simply jammed the lens aperture control shut.

She, the Raptor, and I-Five caught up to Lorn in short order. He was looking at the security cam.

"Don't worry," she said, "I rascaled it."

He glanced at her. "It was live? I figured it was a dummy they'd set out to keep their trail clear."

"There were, you'll remember, two active power relays back there,"

I-Five said.

Lorn glanced at him, shrugged, then nodded thanks to Darsha. The gesture came from him easily and naturally. It was hard to believe that less than a day ago he'd resented her for saving his life.

They continued on. It was a twisty path that Green Hair led them down, even for Coruscant-through dark alleys and back utility routes grown vermicularly complex over the centuries. At times the way was so narrow and the darkness so complete, it was hard to believe that they had returned to the surface. Darsha kept her senses sharp, but other than an occasional mendicant or vagrant huddled shapelessly in dark corners, they met no one on the route. After another ten minutes they came to a large round tube, identified as a thermal conduit. Faded signs all around it gave warnings in various Republic languages as well as universal pictograms about the dangers of the pipeline.

Green Hair indicated an access hatch on the side of the pipe.

"Through there," he said.

Lorn stared at the access hatch on the side of the conduit, then at Green Hair. "You're sure the whammy you put on him is still working?" he asked Darsha.

Darsha nodded. "He's not lying," she said. "He believes this is the route. Unless he's delusional, this is the way they use to go uplevels."

I-Five tapped the pipe. It rang hollow. "My sensors can't penetrate the insulation. It could be safe, though."

"Fine," Lorn said. "You open it." He stepped back and let I- Five take his place.

"I live to serve," the droid said sarcastically, gripping the access wheel. He twirled it easily and popped the hatch. No clouds of boiling steam poured out, and the droid looked inside.

"It appears to go up ten levels, at least. There's a ladder on the inside. Anyone ready?"

Lorn glanced at Darsha. Green Hair waited placidly beside them. "Do we bring Fashion Plate here with us, or leave him?" he asked her.

Darsha turned to the youth. "Are there any other traps or codes we need to know to get through the tube?"

The Raptor nodded. "Only the door access code at the other end.

One-one-three-four-oh."

The Padawan looked at Lorn. "Leave him."

Lorn nodded and untied their captive. Darsha laid her hand on the youth's shoulder and spoke to him one more time. "You will forget all about us."

"I will forget all about you."

"Be on your way. If danger threatens, you will come to your senses immediately. Otherwise, you will become yourself again after an hour. Go.

And," Darsha added as he turned to leave, "get a haircut."

Green Hair nodded and wandered off, still in his Jedi- induced daze. Lorn couldn't help smiling at the Padawan again. Not bad, not bad at all. He glanced at I-Five and saw the droid watching him, his blank expression somehow even more noncommittal than usual. Lorn cleared his throat and motioned the droid into the pipe. He wasn't looking forward to climbing a ladder ten stories.

Darsha followed Lorn and I-Five up the ladder. It was a long, claustrophobia-inducing climb, and on top of all the other exertions she had been through, it was fairly grueling. But the thought of finally leaving the lawless abyss that was the Crimson Corridor helped propel her upward.

There was another access hatch at the top, which I-Five popped open easily. They followed him through.

They were in a large chamber that, by the look of it, once had been a central power-dispensing agency for several blocks' worth of buildings.

It was two stories high and filled with conduits of all types, a bewildering array of catwalks, and what looked like several old thermal generators. At some point the plant must have been closed down and turned into a storage facility. At the far end of the room was a thick durasteel storage chamber designed for hazardous wastes. I-Five took a look inside it.

"More junk," he reported, "including a small carbon-freezing chamber." The droid looked around the room, noticing the various containers of fuel and tanks of gas for welding stacked all over the place. "I wouldn't fire any blasters if I were you," I-Five said to Lorn.

"If I have anything to say about it," Lorn said with heartfelt intensity, "I'll never fire a blaster again."

Darsha looked at I-Five and would have sworn the droid was smiling.

Across the room was a door. There were several windows in the upper walls, and through them streamed bright sunlight. She grabbed Lorn and hugged him.

"We made it!"

He looked surprised, then uncertain-then surrendered to the moment and returned the hug. Before he could say anything, however, Darsha felt her joy wash away in a flood of dread.

She could feel him before she could see him. She let go of Lorn and spun toward the door, lightsaber already in her hand.

The door opened.

The Sith was there.

CHAPTER 30.

Darth Maul stood in the doorway and gazed upon his quarry, feeling the surprise and horror of the two facing him ripple across the room.

They were trapped. He knew it and so did they, and it made this moment all the more glorious. He grinned slowly.

He had arrived at the lower end of the conduit quickly, using the patrol speeder's strobes to clear a path through the traffic. He had missed them, of course, but a quick reconnaissance of the conduit had revealed the only logical destination of the group. All the while he had acted with just the barest awareness of the Force, cloaking himself from its embrace. He had lived within the powerful boundaries of the dark side for so long that to not do so had left him feeling naked and blind at first, but it was necessary in order to not provide any warning to the Jedi apprentice who had sided with his quarry. He had circled the building, seeing only a few high transparisteel windows and one main doorway to the interior. He could not have devised a better trap had he tried.

Still further removed from the Force than he had been in years, he had extended the tiniest tendril of awareness to the edge of the door leading into the building. There he had stood, waiting for confirmation that his prey was at its final destination.

After a time, it had come, and he had stepped back into the Force, enjoying the sensation as the dark side enfolded him. Immediately he had felt the Padawan react, and then he had opened the door.

Now Darth Maul stepped forward, igniting both blades of his lightsaber. The moment had been perfect, but like all such, it was fleeting, already over. It was time to create another, far more satisfying one: the triumph of finally completing his mission.

For a few incredibly long heartbeats Darsha was paralyzed by shock, defeated by her emotions. Fear, despair, and hopelessness clawed at her, sapping her will. She faced the ultimate enemy; the Sith was far more powerful than she in the Force. He had slain Master Bondara, one of the Jedi's best fighters.

Give up, an insistent voice in the back of her mind whispered. Drop your weapon. Give up...

But as the Sith activated his lightsaber's twin blades, years of training that had grown almost into instinct flared within her. The council of despair in her head was stilled.

She embraced the Force.

There is no emotion; there is peace.

Her fear evaporated and was replaced by quietude.

She was still conscious of the fact that the Sith was well capable of killing her, but it was a distant concern. If death was inevitable, then what mattered was how she faced it.

There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.

She had attended a lecture on battle techniques given by Master Yoda earlier this year, and the memory of it came back to her now.

Yoda had faced the a.s.sembled students and spoken, his thin reedy voice somehow carrying to the far corners of the lecture hall without benefit of amplifiers.

"Better than training, the Force is. More than experience or speed it gives."

And he had given a demonstration. Three members of the council-Plo Koon, Saesee Tiin, and Depa Bil-laba, excellent fighters all-had come forward and attacked him. Master Yoda had not been armed, and had not seemed to move more than a meter or so, his tread slow and measured.

Nevertheless, none of the three had been able to lay a finger on him. The lesson had struck powerfully home: Knowledge of the Force was infinitely better than technique.

Now Darsha let herself sink into the Force, not trying to maintain any control over it, letting it take over as she had when facing the taozin and the Raptors. How many times had Master Bondara told her to simply relax, to let go? She did so now, feeling herself reach a deeper place in the Force than she had ever been before. How she knew this she could not say-it simply was. She felt her senses heighten to diamond sharpness, and every feature of the abandoned power station came into focus, both the visible and the invisible. She knew every wall, door, and piece of machinery, each particle of dust.

And she knew what she had to do.

All this, in less than a second's time.

With a small wave of her hand behind her, Darsha telekinetically pushed Lorn and I-Five backwards, sending them shooting dozens of meters into the storage chamber that she knew had been designed to be strong enough to hold dangerous, volatile waste. The hatch slammed shut. The Sith would not be able to reach them immediately, which would give her time. With a thought she scrambled the lock mechanism so that the door could not be opened, then ignited her lightsaber, its golden glow shining in the dimness of the old power station.

The twin ruby blades of the Sith's lightsaber spun as he leapt toward her, and she stepped forward to meet him.

Lorn pounded on the door of the waste-containment chamber, but it would not open.

"Darsha! Open the door!"

He tugged frantically at the latch, but the lock mechanism had been scrambled. There was a small port of yellowed transparisteel in the hatch, and through it he could see Darsha and the Sith battling, the energy blades colliding in showers of sparks.

This was madness! What had she done? She had to know she had no chance against the demon who had killed her Master. The three of them together, with I-Five's finger blasters and his own blaster, might possibly be able to take him. But there was no way she could face him alone.

She was going to die.

After her, in all probability, he would be next-but Lorn barely thought about that. All that mattered was getting that hatch open so that he could reach her, somehow help her!

He pulled the vibroblade from his pocket and tried it on the locking mechanism. No good.

"I-Five, get us out of here!" he shouted. When the droid did not respond, he turned to see why.

I-Five had powered up the carbon-freezing unit. A cloud of bilious smoke-carbonite vapor-misted the small chamber.

"What are you doing? She's going to die out there!"

"Yes," the droid said. "She is."

Darth Maul felt a change in the Force as the woman stepped forward.

Interesting-she was more powerful than he had thought. It did not matter, of course. He, who had trained his entire life to kill Jedi, could certainly not fail to kill a mere Padawan. But a more challenging opponent would take more time. Still, there were no other exits from the building; his target and the droid weren't going anywhere.

He might as well enjoy himself.

Maul twirled his twin blades in an overhand arc, the better to separate her upper body from her lower.

And she caught the strike on her weapon's yellow length of plasma, deflecting the first blade, then sparking on the second to twist it past.

He changed direction, stabbing forward in the form known as Striking Sarlacc to pierce her heart.

"Which was deflected by her in a downward stroke, the tip of her blade then arcing out to gut him.

But he wasn't there, having backflipped to land in a defensive posture.

Darth Maul bared his teeth at her. For a Padawan, she was a worthy opponent. No Jedi Master lived within the Force more fully than she did at this moment.

But he was going to kill her. He knew it, and so did she.

The Sith apprentice launched a simultaneous attack, using the Force to throw a rusty power-wrench and a bucket of old fasteners from a worktable at her as he launched himself forward, lightsaber dancing a variant of a teras kasi Death Weave.

This entertainment was beginning to pall. Time to kill her and move on to his primary target.

There is no pa.s.sion; there is serenity.

It was true. Every action she took was committed and well defined, but there was no emotion, no conscious thought preceding it. The Force guided her, helped her make the lightning-fast movements necessary to deflect the Sith, and even to counterattack.

But it was not enough. The Sith was the best fighter Darsha had ever seen. His movement was precise, his control of the Force that of a musician playing an intricate solo. All of which made it even more mandatory that information about him reach the Temple.

Using the Force, she deflected the tool and bucket of parts he hurled at her. Several of the latter got through, striking her legs and torso as she leapt five meters up and onto a catwalk that ran the length of the chamber. As she landed, she caught a glimpse of Lorn's stricken face, framed in the viewport of the containment unit's hatch. She barely had time to catch her breath before the Sith was there in front of her.

His eyes were hypnotic, their golden hue an eerie counterpart to the bloodred and black tattoos covering his face. But they did not prevent her from deflecting his strikes as he again moved within range, his twin blades spinning so fast they seemed to merge into a crimson shield.

There was a sizzle as her blade intersected his, a flash of sparks as they separated, she to deflect, he to attack with the blade opposite.

Darsha slashed backhand, feeling a weakness in his defense.