But it was a trap, carefully laid, and he spun a ruby shaft to intersect, which would have hit her at the same time.

But she wasn't there, having propelled herself sideways to a new position a meter away, her lightsaber pointed at his chest.

And the Sith dived forward, striking left-right-left in a series of attacks that left her winded, even a.s.sisted as she was by the Force. She deflected, forcing her mind to disengage from following his technique, to relax and maintain her deep connection to the Force. Thoughts were a hazard. He did not share that weakness; she could feel the truth of that. He had more conscious control of the power at his command, and that gave him the edge. If she tried to increase her control of the Force, she would reduce her ability to simply react-but if she did not, she could only defend.

The problem reverberated within her as she maintained her connection with the environment, her senses reaching out, her mind searching for answers.

When she found one, she tested it and realized it was her only chance.

Lorn grabbed the droid's arms and tried to pull him away from the unit's controls. He might as well have tried to pull a skyhook down from orbit. "What are you doing?"

I-Five did not stop working as he answered. "Trying to ensure that her sacrifice is not a futile one."

"It won't be, if you'll just blast that d.a.m.ned door open!"

I-Five kept talking, his voice maddeningly even. "Even my reactions are no match for the Sith's-and I am far faster than you and Padawan a.s.sant. She is doing for us what her Master did for her-buying time."

"What good will that do? We're trapped in this chamber-"

"With a carbon-freezing unit that can be adapted to put us both in cryostasis."

Sheer surprise kept Lorn from protesting for a moment. The droid continued, "It's theoretically possible for living beings to be frozen in a carbonite block and later revived. I read an interesting treatise on the subject once in Scientific Galactica-"

Lorn turned, a snarl building deep in his throat, and aimed the Saurin's blaster at the hatch lock. One way or another he was going to reach her.

"Stop!" I-Five commanded. "This chamber's magnetically sealed. The ricochet would most likely destroy us both."

Lorn spun about and pointed the blaster at I-Five. "Get over there and open that door," he said, in a voice that did not sound remotely like his own, "or I'll blow you to sc.r.a.p metal."

I-Five turned his head and looked at him for a moment. Then the droid reached out and grabbed the blaster, taking it away from Lorn before the latter had time to pull the trigger.

"Now listen to me," I-Five said as he returned to his work. "We have one chance to survive this, and it's not a very good one. The Padawan has no chance. She knows this." He finished entering a final bit of data on the unit's control panel. "Get into the unit."

Lorn stared at him, then turned and looked back out of the hatch window. He couldn't see Darsha or the Sith directly, but he could see their shadows moving on the floor, cast by the light from the high windows. He realized they had taken the battle to one of the overhead catwalks.

She is doing for us what her Master did for her- buying time.

He had known her for barely forty-eight hours, and in that time he had gone from hating her and everything she stood for, to-this. This frantic pain, this frustration, this welter of emotions he had not allowed himself to feel for years. He did not love her; there hadn't been enough time for that. But he had come to feel fondness for her, to deeply respect and admire her. If all the Jedi were like her...

He didn't want to finish the thought. He forced himself to.

If all Jedi are like her, then what happened to Jax was the best thing for him.

"Hurry!" I-Five said. "The unit's on a timer. We have less than a minute."

Lorn pressed his face to the transparisteel, trying to get a last look at her. He failed. He could dimly hear the crackling and buzzing of the lightsabers, could see the flashes and cascades of sparks as they clashed against each other or sliced through metal as though it were flimsiplast. But he could not see her.

I-Five took him gently but firmly by the shoulders and turned him away from the hatch. Lorn let the droid lead him over to the carbon-freezing unit. He felt no fear as he stepped into it. The temptation was to not feel anything at all, to just be numb.

No, he told himself. He had lived too long that way. If these were to be his final moments-which they could very well be; the odds of the droid's plan succeeding were slim indeed-he would not live them in an emotional void.

It was the very least he could do in acknowledgment of her sacrifice.

He stepped into the open cylinder of the device. I-Five crowded in beside him. There was barely enough room for both.

Lorn looked at the droid.

"If we come out of this alive," he said, "I'm going to kill that Sith."

I-Five did not reply; there was no time. Lorn felt freezing- cold steam boiling up around him. His vision was obscured by mist, which turned to darkness-a darkness as deep and complete as death.

CHAPTER 31.

Darth Maul felt a slight disappointment as he realized that the Jedi was not truly as powerful as she had first appeared. Her depth in the Force was impressive, but her methodology did not match it. Both of them knew it was only a matter of time now. He focused his attacks, forcing her to use a more technique-based defense.

She leapt down to the floor, and he followed her. He felt a Force-powered pressure move toward him and deflected it, sensing several large tanks and canisters being shoved around behind him. She was growing weak.

Such an attack was a sign of desperation. Soon it would be over.

He dived forward, rolling to come up alongside her, deflecting her attack as he did so. Another invisible pressure wave knocked over more equipment behind where he had been.

Pitiful.

Maul thrust upward with his blade and was met with hers, thwarted for the moment. A deliberately left weakness in his attack was not exploited, and again he felt a loss of respect for her.

It was too bad, but there would be other missions, other challenges more worthy of his skills. Someday the Jedi Temple would be in ruins, and he would be there to see it, after having killed many of the Jedi himself. But now it was time to end this.

Darth Maul readied himself for the final strike.

Darsha sent a second wave of the Force outward, tumbling over yet another tank of fuel. She had managed to move several welding cylinders and fuel cells toward each other. They were heaped together now, an extremely explosive accident waiting to happen.

How appropriate, she thought, to use Master Bondara's sacrifice as an example.

Darsha let herself think of Lorn for a moment. She hoped the droid had figured out the potential for escape that the carbon-freezing unit represented. If not, then her sacrifice would be in vain.

She had seen Lorn's face in the hatch window, his expression full of desperation and concern-not for himself, but for her. It had most definitely not been the expression of someone who hated her, or was even indifferent to her fate.

It was too bad, she thought. If they had had more time ... If they'd been able to see this through to the end, reach the Jedi Temple together...

But that was not the way it was fated to be.

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

She thrust at the Sith, her lightsaber thrumming, and moved into a better position. She had to get this just right, make it look like it wasn't deliberate.

She left herself open. The Sith immediately took advantage of it.

His blade pierced her side, a fiery hot jet of pain that caused her to cry out.

Darsha a.s.sant released her lightsaber, using the Force to send it forward, still lit, to pierce one of the gas cylinders.

She had time for one last thought.

There is no death; there is the Force.

She knew it was the truth.

Darth Maul saw his opponent's strategy, realizing what she planned to do nearly too late. He jumped, using the Force to propel him upward toward one of the high windows. He smashed through it easily and landed on a nearby walkway as the explosive canisters within detonated.

Fortunately, the strong walls of the structure contained the explosion. The Padawan had been truly devious at the end; he now realized she'd been preparing the trap with her feeble Force attacks. A far more worthy opponent than he'd realized.

Her actions had cost him the pleasure of killing his primary target. Maul offered a smile to her memory. Not all could fight so well; this was to be honored.

A crowd was beginning to gather. He had to make sure his mission was complete, and that was best done quickly. He leapt back to the window he had just broken through. Smoke was pouring from it now: through it he could dimly make out the inferno that the chamber had become. He used the Force to momentarily dissipate the clouds and saw below him the waste-containment unit that his target had hidden in. The contained pressure wave of the explosion had ripped it open; Maul could see shattered and twisted pieces of equipment.

Nothing could have survived that. He saw no trace whatsoever of either the Padawan's or Lorn Pavan's bodies; the explosion had vaporized them.

His mission at last was complete.

Still, it behooved him to be absolutely certain. After all, Pavan had proved extraordinarily hard to kill, had even survived a previous explosion. Maul had to make sure.

He asked the dark side, sending investigatory vibrations throughout the chamber, searching for any signs of life.

There were none.

Excellent.

Darth Maul dropped back down to the walkway. Paying no attention to the milling onlookers, he pulled his cowl up and walked away from the burning building.

It was time to inform his master of his success. At last.

CHAPTER 32.

Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi sensed death as he once more neared the site of Master Bondara's wrecked skycar. It wasn't the Jedi's pa.s.sing that he had noticed earlier; this was something new.

As he drew closer he saw smoke rising from the street and noticed strobes flashing from police cruisers surrounding the area. Obviously some new disaster had occurred here-one important enough to bring the local law enforcement out.

After leaving the Tusken Oasis, he had decided to return to the last place that Darsha and Master Bondara had been seen, which was in the latter's skycar. A floating barricade warned the Padawan to stay back, and for a second Obi-Wan considered doing so. This was the Crimson Corridor, after all. No doubt some unconnected crime was being investigated here, and if that was the case, he would only get in the way.

But then he felt it again-the sense of foreboding that had so unnerved him when he'd been at the site before.

Obi-Wan maneuvered his vehicle past the barricade. A forensics droid was ready to warn him off, but when it saw that he was a Jedi Padawan, it let him through. The Jedi did not like to use their secular powers, but within the structures of the Republic they were legally empowered to cross police lines on any investigation that touched on their own.

As he landed just outside the scanning line of police lasers, two plainclothes investigators-a Mrlssi and a Sull.u.s.tan, both of whom looked like they'd rather be anywhere but here-made their way to intercept him.

The Mrlssi spoke first.

"Can we help you?"

Obi-Wan decided to see what response he got with part of the truth.

There was no reason for them to know that two Jedi Knights had gone missing.

"I've been following reports of a criminal who has been reported operating in the area. Apparently there have been some a.s.saults ..." He let his statement taper off, focusing on the reactions of the pair, hoping to provoke a response. "I was led to believe that there might be some connection here."

The Sull.u.s.tan looked at the Mrlssi. "Well, yeah, there might be.

Come have a look."

Obi-Wan followed the two over toward a new piece of wreckage, perhaps half a block from Master Bondara's vehicle. Although it had been badly burned and the metal twisted in the heat of the fire, it was plain that a large section of the police unit had been sheared away, and there was a cut through the canopy where the pilot droid would have sat.

"Any ideas, Padawan? ..."

"Ken.o.bi. Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi."

The Sull.u.s.tan spoke. "Recognize the skycar type?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Is there any significance to it?"

The investigator nodded. "This is-or was-a PCBU: police cruiser backup unit. They're specifically designed to aid officers answering calls in places like the Crimson Corridor. SOP is to hover back ten meters, up fifteen meters from answering units."

Obi-Wan could see the problem they were wrestling with. How could someone get fifteen meters into the air to reach the PCBU without getting shot?

"Was anyone killed?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Two patrol officers," the Mrlssi said.

Obi-Wan nodded to the two investigators. "This may be the work of Black Sun operatives. I will contact the Temple regarding this. You will have the full cooperation of the Jedi in this matter." So saying, he turned away, heading back to his skycar.

This matter had now grown too large to be dealt with by one Jedi Padawan. Given possible involvement with Black Sun, and now the death of two Coruscant officers, Obi-Wan knew that the only prudent thing to do was to report back to his superiors. A full-scale investigation would have to be launched, in cooperation with the security forces.

He raised his skycar up to around the tenth level- below the lowest stratum of traffic, but high enough to ensure a relatively straight course back to the Temple. Whatever was going on, he was certain now that it involved far more than just the disappearance of Master Bondara and Darsha.

Darth Sidious could feel a slight disturbance in the Force before his scrambled comlink chimed, and knew by this that his apprentice was about to contact him. He stepped to the holoprojector and activated the grid. Privacy failsafes glowed green before he spoke.

"My apprentice. Your mission is complete."