Lorn looked back down at the roof of the monad, where the Sith had been visible until a moment ago.

"Wherever he's going."

CHAPTER 34.

Darth Maul settled into the pilot's chair. He pressed his hand to a sensor plate on the console before him, and the hemispheric control chamber filled with various hums, tones, and vibrations as the Infiltrator powered up. A quick outside scan revealed nothing in the immediate area that would interfere with his launch. Maul nodded in satisfaction.

His mission was nearly over at last. It had taken far longer than antic.i.p.ated and had led him into dark corners of Coruscant he had not even known existed. But now his a.s.signment was almost accomplished.

Everyone whom Hath Monchar had spoken to, every potential information leak, had been stilled. Darth Sidious's plan for the trade embargo, and eventually the destruction of the Republic, could now proceed unchallenged.

Maul pulled the holocron from one of his belt compartments and looked at it. Such a small item, and yet the repository of so much potential power. He returned it to the compartment, then activated the vertical repulsor array. He watched on the overhead monitors as the monad's rooftop fell away from the ship. The Infiltrator's nav computer began plotting directional and velocity vectors that would take him to the rendezvous point specified by his master. There he would deliver the holocron to Darth Sidious, and then his mission would be complete.

Within a matter of minutes he was high above the clouds, the curve of the planet revealing itself. It would take a little time to reach his destination; the orbital sh.e.l.ls surrounding Coruscant were nearly as congested as the traffic strata on or near the surface. Once he was in orbit he would have to disable his invisibility field; otherwise it would be too difficult to avoid a collision with one of the myriad satellites, s.p.a.ce stations, and ships that circled the planet.

Maul took the ship off autopilot and fed minimal power to the ion drive. The autopilot was more than capable of delivering him to his destination, but he preferred to be in control.

As he settled the Infiltrator into low orbit, barely skimming the tenuous gases of the upper ionosphere, Maul thought about his battle with the Jedi Padawan. She had certainly been smarter and more resourceful than he had given her credit for. So had her companion, for that matter.

They had led him on quite a merry chase. He mentally saluted them both.

He admired courage, skill, and brains, even in an enemy. They had been doomed from the start, of course, but at least they had fought their fate instead of submitting meekly to it, like that cowardly Neimoidian who had caused all this trouble to begin with.

He wondered what his master had in mind for his next mission.

Something relating to the Naboo blockade, most likely. He hoped there would be more Jedi involved. Killing the Padawan had only whetted his appet.i.te.

The ship Tuden Sal provided for Lorn and I-Five was an ARE Thixian Seven-a four-pa.s.senger modified cruiser. The craft had definitely seen better days, Lorn thought as the skycar settled down next to the ship's berth at Eastport, but that didn't matter. As long as it could fly and shoot, that was all he cared about.

As Tuden Sal arranged for launch clearance via his comlink, Lorn turned to I-Five and said, "Give me the blaster."

I-Five returned the Raptor's weapon to him. "As long as you're not planning on trying to shoot me with it again," the droid said.

"I wouldn't have shot you."

I-Five made no reply to that.

"Listen," Lorn continued, "I don't expect you to go with me. In fact, it makes more sense for you to go to the Temple and tell the Jedi what's been happening. That way there'll be a backup plan if I fail."

"Oh, please," I-Five said. "You take on the Sith alone? You've got about as much chance as a s...o...b..ll in a supernova."

" It's not your fight."

"Finally, something we agree on. Nevertheless, I'm not letting you go up there alone. You're going to need all the help you can get. Which reminds me-" The droid pulled from his chest compartment what looked like a small white ball. He handed it to Lorn, who looked closely at it. It was semitransparent, roughly spherical, about half the length of his thumb in diameter, and apparently made of some organic material.

"What is it?"

"A skin nodule from the taozin. They're made of specially adapted cells that block receptivity to the Force."

Lorn regarded the ball askance. Now that he knew what it was, he felt revulsed by its touch. "You're saying if I have this, the Sith can't use the Force on me ?"

"I'm saying it may shroud your presence long enough for you to sneak up on him unnoticed. It won't protect you from his telekinetic powers, and it certainly won't do anything about his fighting skills. But it's better than nothing. Now I suggest we raise ship." So saying, the droid turned toward the ramp of the Thixian Seven.

Lorn let him get two paces ahead of him, then reached out and deactivated the master switch on the back of I-Five's neck. The droid collapsed, and Lorn caught him, settling him to the ground. He turned to see Tuden Sal watching.

"Family squabble?"

"Something like that. I need one more favor," Lorn said. "Deliver this bucket of bolts to the Jedi Temple. He's got information they'll want to hear."

Sal nodded. He picked I-Five up under the arms and dragged him over to his skycar. Lorn watched for a minute, then turned and boarded the ship.

Lorn could honestly say that he wasn't frightened at the thought of facing the Sith alone. Frightened was far too mild a word. He was terrified, paralyzed, totally unmanned by what he was contemplating. He knew he was pursuing a suicidal course of action, and for what? Some quixotic notion of revenge for the death of a woman he barely knew? It was madness. I-Five was right: his chances for survival were so long that the odds were up in the purely theoretical number range.

As the Thixian Seven lifted away from the s.p.a.ceport, Lorn felt himself on the verge of hyperventila-tion. Every nerve in his trembling body was on fire with adrenaline; every brain cell still functioning after his periodic bouts of alcohol abuse was screaming at him to leave orbit and just keep on going. Instead, he instructed the nav computer to plot the possible trajectories of a ship coming from the surface grid containing the abandoned monad.

Within far too short a time the computer had identified a craft in low orbit, thirty-five kilometers away. Lorn put it on visual, since the readout said that the stealth mechanism had been deactivated. He stared at the computer-enhanced image of the Sith's vessel. With long nose and bent wings, it was a sleek craft, nearly thirty meters long; the scan readout didn't specify armament, but it looked mean.

Below him, Coruscant looked like a gigantic circuit board laid across the planet's surface. It was a spectacular sight, but Lorn wasn't in any mood for sightseeing. He settled into an orbit below and well behind his enemy's ship. He didn't know how much protection-if any- the taozin nodule would grant him, and he wasn't going to press his luck. He was going to need plenty of luck as it was.

Lorn wished I-Five was with him. He was painfully aware that since this nightmare had begun, every time his life had been in peril it had been either the droid or Darsha who had saved him. Some hero, he thought.

He missed Darsha, as well, although he didn't wish she was with him. He wished she were still alive and far away from here, safe on some friendly planet that had never heard of either the Sith or the Jedi. He wished he was there with her.

The nav computer beeped softly to get his attention, and displayed a course vector overlay on one of the monitors. The Sith's ship had changed course; it was now headed for a large s.p.a.ce station in geosynchronous...o...b..t over the equator.

His mouth dry as paper, Lorn instructed the autopilot to follow. He had no idea what he was going to do when he got there. All he knew was he had to try, somehow, to stop the Sith.

For Darsha's sake.

And for his own.

CHAPTER 35.

Luden Sal loaded the deactivated I-Five into his skycar and instructed the droid chauffeur as to their destination. The vehicle lifted away from the s.p.a.ceport, sliding smoothly into the airborne traffic lanes.

He felt sorry for Lorn. His friend hadn't told him very much about the situation he was in, but from the few hints he had dropped and from the look of the goon he was chasing, Sal figured his chances of survival were not great. That was too bad. He'd always thought Lorn had potential, even though he came across as a chronic underachiever. One rogue can always recognize another.

But in all probability, Lorn was going to die on this crazy quest of his. A shame, but it really wasn't any of Sal's business. He was far more concerned about the droid.

The Sakiyan had never really understood how Lorn could treat I-Five as an equal-even going so far as to call him a "business partner."

Droids were machines- clever ones, to be sure, and able in some cases to mimic human behavior to a startling degree. But that's all it was: mimicry. Legally they were property. Though he'd become somewhat accustomed to it during the year or so he'd known Lorn and I-Five, Sal had never completely gotten over the vaguely creepy feeling it gave him to see the two of them interacting as peers.

Well, there would be no more of that. He'd had his eye on this droid for some time; the weapons modifications alone would make him a valuable a.s.set. Since Sal occasionally had dealings with Black Sun, it was not a bad idea at all to have a bodyguard, and he was certain that IFive would make a very good one-once the droid's memory had been wiped, of course.

He wasn't overly concerned with how Lorn might feel about this.

After all, he fully expected never to see Lorn again. And even if he did, it wasn't a capital crime to steal and reprogram a droid. The most he could expect in terms of legal repercussions might be a fine, which wouldn't be nearly as much as the cost of a new droid with I-Five's special features.

No matter how you looked at it, even throwing in that clunker of a ship, it was good business.

The Temple's roof sparkled in the afternoon sun as Sal's skycar shot by it. Soon it was lost to sight among the countless other flying craft that filled the skies of Coruscant.

The Infiltrator settled into one of the s.p.a.ce station's docking sleeves, and Maul heard the m.u.f.fled metallic sounds of the air lock's outer hatch sealing with the station's. He deactivated the life support and artificial gravity systems-then, weightless, he made his way through the ship's dark interior to the air lock.

This point of egress to the station was in one of the outlying service modules. Darth Sidious had promised him that there would be neither human nor droid to interfere with his progress, and as Maul emerged from the air lock he saw that this was so. The lock opened into what appeared to be a service corridor-narrow and low, the walls and ceiling covered with pipes, conduits, and the like. The artificial gravity was not on in this region of the station, no doubt for budgetary reasons. No matter; Maul had operated in zero- g environments before. He pushed himself away from the lock and floated down the corridor, using the impedimenta that festooned the walls to pull himself along.

The directions Darth Sidious had given him were clear in his head; he was to proceed down this pa.s.sageway to the module proper, and then take a vertical shaft up to one of the larger habitation modules. At a prearranged time-less than fifteen minutes away-he would rendezvous with Maul. Maul would then hand him the crystal.

And then his mission would be complete.

Lorn let the autopilot take care of the docking procedure; he wasn't all that good of a pilot. I'm not all that good at anything, he thought bitterly, except getting those I care about in trouble. He still had the blaster he had taken from the Raptor, but he only now remembered its power pack wasn't good for more than a few shots. Of course, a few shots would probably be all he would have time for, one way or another.

After the green light flashed, Lorn crossed into the service shaft.

It had been some time since he'd experienced zero-g. When he could afford to, he used to work out fairly regularly at a spa that featured null-grav sports. He'd enjoyed the workouts; feeling like he could fly, even if only within the small confines of the spa's structure, had always been good for taking some of the weight of his existence off him.

He was under no illusions, however, that his familiarity with weightlessness gave him any kind of edge over the Sith. He had no doubt that his opponent could handle himself with consummate and deadly skill in any kind of environment. He would need an enormous amount of luck to pull this off.

Once inside the corridor, he moved very cautiously and slowly.

There was no sign of his enemy anywhere ahead, and it didn't look like there was anyplace to hide here. Nevertheless, he was taking no chances.

Lorn wouldn't have been surprised if the Sith suddenly materialized out of thin air in front of him at this point.

He had no idea what he was going to do once he spotted him; he hadn't had time to formulate a plan. If the taozin nodule let him get close enough to get off a shot, he had absolutely no compunctions about shooting his adversary in the back-a.s.suming he didn't pa.s.s out from sheer terror once he had him in his sights.

He reached the end of the corridor. An access shaft led up from here. Before following it, Lorn pulled out the blaster and checked its power supply.

What he found was not good. The weapon had enough power left for one shot at maximum setting, or three shots at the low- level stun setting. After a moment's thought, Lorn adjusted the setting to the lower level, figuring it would be better to have three chances of incapacitating the Sith rather than one chance of killing him. a.s.suming the stun setting would in fact stun him. By now Lorn wasn't at all persuaded that anything could harm his nemesis.

He eased himself into the shaft. It led to a larger, better- lit chamber, perhaps ten meters by ten, and fairly empty save for some equipment bins anch.o.r.ed to the walls.

At the other end of the chamber was the Sith.

His back was to Lorn; he was entering a code on a wall panel, preparing to open a hatch in the far wall.

Lorn rose quietly out of the tube and gripped the blaster in both hands. He braced his feet against the edge of the shaft; there would be a slight recoil in zero-g.

The taozin nodule seemed to be doing its job: the Sith was apparently unaware that Lorn was ten meters behind him and drawing a bead right between his shoulder blades. His hands were trembling, but not so much that he shouldn't be able to hit a target as broad as his enemy's back, especially with three shots at his disposal. Once the Sith was stunned, Lorn would finish him off with the lightsaber and then grab the information crystal.

The Sith pressed a wall b.u.t.ton. A light glowed green, and the hatch started to open.

Now. It had to be now. Lorn drew a deep breath, opening his mouth wide so that the Sith wouldn't hear the intake of air. He exhaled the same way, then drew in another breath and held it.

He pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 36.

The shot was true. The stun bolt nailed the Sith squarely in the middle of his back, hurling him forward to slam against the bulkhead.

Lorn fired one more, which hit the Sith's lower back.

Lorn couldn't believe it. He shoved himself forward, shooting the length of the chamber toward his adversary, who was now floating limply back toward him in a slow rebound from the impact. Blaster held ready-he had one shot left- Lorn grabbed the Sith's robes, pulling the latter around to face him. As he was reaching for the lightsaber he noticed a sparkle of reflected light coming from a half-open compartment on the utility belt.

It was the holocron crystal. Lorn grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket. Then he reached for the lightsaber.

He was staring directly into the sinister tattooed face when the Sith's yellow eyes opened.

Lorn froze, mesmerized by that ferocious glare. He forgot about the lightsaber he was reaching for, forgot about the blaster still in his other hand. Then he was hurled back by a blast, unseen but nonetheless powerful, that left him gasping for air.

The Sith's lightsaber leapt into a black-gloved fist, both blades flashing into existence. One of them flickered toward him like crimson lightning. Lorn felt a blow to his right hand, saw the hand, still clutching the blaster, go spinning away in slow motion, a few globules of blood following it. He didn't feel any pain, did not in fact realize what had happened until he saw the blackened, cauterized stump at the end of his arm.

And now the Sith was spinning around, using the energy of the last blow to rotate himself into attack position again. The moment stretched for Lorn, unbelievably clear and sharp. The Sith's teeth were bared in a rictus of animal hatred. The lightsaber started a horizontal arc that would, in less than a second, shear through his neck.

He was floating in front of the open hatch. His left leg was bent, his foot grazing the side of one of the storage canisters. Lorn kicked against it, propelling himself backwards through the hatch. The energy blade slashed through the empty s.p.a.ce his neck had occupied a moment previously.

He brought his legs up as he sailed through the hatchway. He flipped over in a back somersault, his head coming up and his left arm reaching out for the hatch controls. He saw the Sith hurtling toward him, framed in the opening. His hand slapped the b.u.t.ton, and the hatch swung shut in the Sith's face. A red light glowed, indicating the hatchway was sealed. Lorn raked his ringers over the access panel keypad, scrambling the code.

Through the hatch's port he could see the Sith's face-a sight to chill the blood. Then, faintly, he heard the sound of metal beginning to melt and saw a faint blush of red building in the hatch's center.

The Sith was using his lightsaber to melt through the hatch.

Lorn turned and started pulling himself frantically along the corridor he was in. He didn't know where he was going, or how he was going to escape the vengeance of the monster behind him. There was no room in his head for anything-not even the pain of his severed wrist as the shock began to wear off- except raw red panic.

For possibly the first time in his life, Darth Maul had been taken completely by surprise.

He had felt no warning vibration of the Force before being hit by the blaster bolts. The astonishment this caused him was almost equaled by the shock of realizing that the attack had come from Lorn Pavan. He had been so certain of the Corellian's death back on Coruscant that awakening to see him alive and looting his utility belt had caused Maul to momentarily question his own sanity.

It was the combined shock of these two events- plus the confusing fact that, even though he could see Pavan before him, he could not sense his presence with the Force-that had slowed his reaction time just enough to let the Corellian get through the hatchway land lock it in Maul's face. Now he had to burn his way through the lock mechanism. As soon as the hatch came loose, he savagely hurled it open and shot after Pavan, using the Force to propel his weightless self in pursuit. There was no time to lose. He did not know how Pavan had escaped the explosion back in the storage facility, or how he was able to block his presence in the Force-and he did not care. In a few minutes his master would be at the rendezvous point, and Maul intended to be there, as well, holding the holocron in one hand and Pavan's severed head in the other. This had gone on long enough.