"The Supreme Chancellor's route will be determined wascomputer, at the last moment."

"I'd rather that the route be by skycar to the rooftop pad." Adi shook her head negatively. "I'm sorry, Qui-Gon. He insists on arriving by ground-effect vehicle. We'll have to trust in the same precautions that safeguarded him on the route from the s.p.a.ceport to Lieutenant Governor Tarkin's compound."

"Qui-Gon!" Master Tiin called out suddenly.

Qui-Gon turned to find him and Ki-Adi-Mundi hurrying across the floor toward them.

"Captain Cohl's freighter has been found," Tiin continued. "The Corellian freighter. Ten customs agents were found tied up in the rear cabin." Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan swapped brief looks. "How do they know it's the one Cohl piloted here?"

"The navicomputer indicates that the ship jumped to Eriadu from Karfeddion s.p.a.ce," Ki-Adi-Mundi explained.

"Cohl must have piloted the customs agents' ship to the surface," Qui-Gon surmised.

Tiin nodded as he came to a halt in front of Qui-Gon. "The customs ship has been located at the s.p.a.ceport."

"We should see for ourselves," Obi-Wan said in a rush. Then he stopped himself and regarded Tiin.

"What prompted anyone to conduct a search of the freighter?" Tiin appeared to have antic.i.p.ated the question, along with Qui-Gon's look of wary concern.

"The authorities received an anonymous lead." c ohl's eyelids fluttered, then snapped open.

Boiny's blood - smeared face swam unfocused in his gaze. He felt nauseated and wired. He knew that he should be in great pain, but he was only vaguely aware of his body. Boiny had obviously dosed him with pain blockers. Cohl tasted blood in his mouth, and something else--the syrupy astringency of bacta.

Boiny's features began to sharpen and come into focus.

A blaster bolt had burned a deep furrow in the left side of the Rodian's greenish skull. The wound glistened with freshly applied bacta, but Cohl doubted that the miracle substance would prevail.

His memory made a hurried return. He gave a start and tried to sit up.

"Wait, Captain," Boiny said. His voice was weak and raspy. "Rest for a moment." Cohl paid him no mind. He pushed himself upright, and immediately fell face first to the hard floor. He heard the tip of his nose crack and felt a trickle of blood course down over his mustache and drip onto his lower lip.

He began to drag himself across the floor, to where Rella's body lay unmoving--unmoving and cold when he stretched out his hand and grazed her face with his fingertips.

Boiny was suddenly beside him again.

"She's dead, Captain," he said, anguished.

"By the time I came to, there was nothing I could do." Cohl crawled the final meter to Rella. He threw his right arm over her shoulders, tugging her to him and weeping quietly for a long moment.

"You had to come back," he said quietly, between sobs.

Then he rolled over and glared at Boiny.

"You should have let me die." Boiny had clearly antic.i.p.ated his rage.

"If you were close to dying, I might have been able to do that." He tugged Cohl's ragged shirt aside to expose the thick armorply garment beneath. "The vest absorbed most of the charge, but you have internal injuries." He glanced at Cohl's tattered left thigh, then leaned over to examine his forehead.

"I did the best I could with your other wounds." Cohl raised his hand to his head. The bolt from Rella's blaster had burned away all the hair on the right side of his head and left a wound every bit as deep and ragged as the one that trenched Boiny's skull.

"Where'd you find--was "An emergency medkit in a cabinet by the door.

The bacta patches are a couple of months expired, but they probably have enough potency to sustain us for a while." Cohl pa.s.sed the back of his hand under his nose, then took a stuttering breath. "Your head..."

"Fractured, as well as burned. But I gave myself a healthy measure of the pain blockers I fed you. I came close to overdosing myself. But at least I'm seeing only one of you now." Cohl managed to sit up. Glancing around the room, he spied the man he had killed lying faceup on the floor, exactly where the blaster had dropped him. Otherwise, the room was empty.

He looked back at Boiny.

"Why didn't they finish us?"

"This wasn't supposed to happen. I figure that Havac panicked." Cohl thought about it for a moment. "No. The Jedi are on to us. He wants us to be found." He paused briefly, then added, "But he isn't fool enough to believe I'd keep quiet about this mission, out of some misguided sense of honor."

"I'll wager that he's counting on the fact that you won't betray Lope and the others." Cohl nodded slowly. "Havac read me right. But he's going to regret not killing me when he had the chance." With visible effort, he raised himself up on his uninjured right knee. "Are any of them still in the warehouse?"

"Only the customs agents secured in the corridor. The cargo bay is deserted." Cohl extended his arm to the Rodian. "Help me up." He winced as Boiny tugged him to his feet.

Gingerly, he planted his left foot on the floor and nearly collapsed.

"I'm going to need a crutch."

"I'll fix you up with something," Boiny said.

Cohl balanced on his good leg. He thought his heart might burst if he looked at Rella again, but he forced his gaze downward nevertheless.

"Some of us were born to be betrayed," he whispered.

"I can't make up to you, Rella. But I can try with everything I've got left to avenge you." Supported on the crutch the Rodian had fashioned from a length of pipe and a cloth-padded brace of plasteel, Cohl followed Boiny out into the corridor. The bound and blindfolded customs agents were scarcely aware of them as they moved stealthily toward the warehouse's s.p.a.ceport entrance. The female agent whose uniform Rella had taken remained unconscious from the shot Boiny had given her aboard the ship.

The front room was loud with the noise of launches and landings, despite the roll-away doors being closed. The repulsorsleds were still hovering a meter off the sawdust-strewn floor, and everything else was much as Cohl remembered it.

Boiny studied the room for a moment, then walked to the center of the floor, two meters from the lead sled.

"There was a cargo crate here." Cohl eyed the telltale marks in the sawdust.

"Too large for a weapon's crate." Looking around, the two of them spotted the portable holoprojector at the same time. It was resting on the retracted landing strut of one of the sleds. Boiny reached it first.

Setting it atop the sled, he activated it. Cohl limped over as the device was beginning to cycle through its stored images.

"The summit hall," he said, in response to the 3-D image of the majestic dome-roofed building, and the mount it crowned.

Boiny allowed the images to cycle again, pausing the device when it displayed a remote view of the wooded mount, and the four broad avenues that terminated at the hall.

"The vantage from the cl.u.s.ter of rooftops we saw earlier," Boiny said, already initiating a reverse scan through the images. "Havac could be planning to attack Valorum before he arrives at the summit." Cohl tugged at what was left of his beard while he considered it. He gestured to the holoprojector. "He didn't forget to take this.

He wanted it to be found--just the way he wanted us to be found."

Abruptly, Boiny ducked down beneath one of the repulsorsleds. "Here's something he probably doesn't expect to be found," he said as he was standing up.

Cohl narrowed his eyes at the stubby metallic cylinder Boiny showed him.

"A restraining bolt?"

"But an uncommon variety." Boiny brought the bolt to eye level. "Similar to the ones we fired into the security droids aboard the Revenue, but altered to suit a more advanced droid. Maybe a combat model."

"Havac has a droid," Cohl said, mostly to himself. His eyes searched the floor. "Could that be what was in the crate? Or is this one restraining bolt of a bunch?" Boiny adopted a skeptical look. "The Nebula Front employing droids? That can't be right." He regarded the bolt again. "One thing is certain, Captain. This bolt has already been in a droid. I can see the impressions left by whatever tool pried it out." Cohl took the bolt and clenched his hand around it.

"I warned Havac that someone in the Nebula Front had informed the Judicial Department about our plans to attack the Revenue.

Suppose he decided to take extra precautions when planning this operation." Cohl looked at Boiny. "Havac said that the Front had lured the Jedi to Asmeru. That could mean that the attempt on Valorum's life on Coruscant was a ruse, designed to divert attention from Eriadu."

"Right," Boiny said uncertainly.

Cohl glanced at the holoprojector. "Havac leaves us and the holoprojector to be discovered by the authorities..." He grinned wickedly. "I'm not sure how Havac plans to do it, Boiny. But I think I know what he's planning to do."

"Captain?" the Rodian said in confusion.

Cohl shoved the restraining bolt into his breast pocket and began to limp toward the corridor.

Boiny followed him, gesturing back to the holoprojector. "Shouldn't I at least delete this thing?" Cohl shook his head. "Hide it in plain sight, just as Havac did. The only way we're going to get to him is by making sure that everyone else keeps chasing their own tails." Outside the front entrance to Lieutenant Governor Tarkin's palatial residence, Valorum, Sei Taria, and the rest of the Coruscant delegation waited for their caravan of repulsorlift vehicles to arrive.

Fashionable tunics and brocaded cloaks were once again the order of the day, except in the case of security personnel, who were nearly as numerous as the diplomats.

"I trust that your stay with us has been pleasant," Tarkin was saying to Valorum.

"Very pleasant," Valorum replied. "Permit me to extend the same courtesy to you, should you ever visit Coruscant." Tarkin smiled without showing his teeth. "I hope, Supreme Chancellor, that Coruscant will one day be a second home to me. All the Core, in fact, from Coruscant to Alderaan."

"I'm certain it will." The captain of the Senate Guard detail approached with a durashcct in hand. In place of the customary ceremonial rifle, a state-of-the-art blaster was slung over his shoulder.

"We have the hovercade route, Supreme Chancellor."

"May I have a look at it?" Tarkin asked.

The guard looked to Valorum for permission.

"Let him see it." Tarkin perused the durasheet. "A bit circuitous--perhaps needlessly so. But we should have no problem arriving at the summit hall by the appointed time." He glanced down the long drive that led to the mansion. "The governor should be here momentarily. Then we can all depart." Tarkin was about to add something, when a landspeeder leapt into view, making fast for where he and Valorum were standing.

"What now?" Tarkin asked as the two-seater pulled up to the house and came to a halt.

Absent their Jedi cloaks, Adi Gallia and Saesee Tiin climbed from the hovering vehicle and made straight for Valorum. Tiin did the talking.

"Supreme Chancellor, there is a problem. We have confirmation that a.s.sa.s.sins contracted by the Nebula Front have breached Eriadu security.

Qui-Gon Jinn and several other Jedi have gone to the s.p.a.ceport, in the hope of intercepting them."

"The danger is no longer conjectural, Supreme Chancellor," Adi said earnestly.

Valorum's forehead wrinkled in apprehension. "I want them found," he said at last. "I will not have the summit interrupted." Tiin and Adi nodded.

"Will you now consent to our accompanying you!" Tiin asked.

"No," Valorum said flatly. "Appearances must be maintained." Adi looked hard at him. "Then will you at least agree to keeping your vehicle's force field ena4?"

"I absolutely insist on it," Tarkin interjected. "It is Eriadu's obligation to a.s.sure that no harm comes to you." With obvious reluctance, Valorum nodded.

"Until we've reached the grounds of the summit hall." His face blushed with sudden anger, Tarkin swung to a group of Eriadu security guards, who were standing behind him. "See to it that the streets are cleared.

Arrest anyone you have cause to suspect. Don't concern yourvs with legalities. Take whatever steps are necessary." Eriadu security agents were already on the scene by the time Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Vergere, and KiAdi-Mundi reached the customs warehouse.

One human agent was aiming a scanning device at several repulsorsleds parked just inside the entrance, still supporting a dozen tall and narrow cargo containers, whose opened hatches revealed them to be empty.

Elsewhere in the large s.p.a.ce, a group of infuriated customs agents were being interrogated.

The uniformed human commander of the security detail entered from a dimly lighted corridor. Behind him moved two green-scaled and chitin-sheathed insectoid bipeds, with large black eyes, short ridged snouts, and toothless mouths.

Qui-Gon saw Obi-Wan's jaw go slack.

"Verpine," he explained. "Organs in the chest enable the species to communicate by means of radio waves. But they can also speak and understand Basic, with the a.s.sistance of translator devices. Their keen senses make them brilliant at detail work."

"Verpine," Obi-Wan said, shaking his head in wonder.

Seeing the four Jedi, the commander approached, while the pair of aliens set about scrutinizing the sawdust-covered floor.

Qui-Gon introduced himself and the others.

"We have two dead humans in the rear room," the commander said, after giving Vergere the same look Obi-Wan had given the Verpine trackers. "One male, one female, each dead of blaster bolts fired at close range, but from different weapons.

Carbon scoring on the floor and walls indicate a full-scale blaster fight. Blood spots show that at least one of the combatants who got away was a Rodian. Bacta patches, synthflesh, and who knows what else is missing from the room's medkit. We're waiting for results on finger - and handprint a.n.a.lysis."

"Captain Cohl's partner is a Rodian," Qui-Gon said.

The commander made note of it on a datapad, then pointed to the group of customs agents. "They were taken by surprise by no less than eight heavily armed a.s.sailants, most of them human, but at least four Nikto and a couple of Bith.

"After the surprise raid, they were stashed in the corridor, so they can't provide much in the way of additional information. But the woman, there, is chief officer of the customs ship the terrorists commandeered.

She identified the dead female in the back room as captain of the Corellian freighter she boarded.

She's still a bit dazed from a knockout injection, but she says she also saw a Rodian, and she thinks she remembers seeing a Gotal and a couple of human males.

"Everyone appears to have left the warehouse through a rear door that opens onto the s.p.a.ceport service road. We're a.s.suming that they're piloting skimmers or landspeeders." The commander stepped toward the center of the room and gestured broadly. "Everything here is just as we found it, except that little piece of hardware, which we discovered beneath one of the sleds." Qui-Gon and the other Jedi followed his finger to a portable holoprojector, sitting atop a cargo crate.

"Whatever else he is, Cohl is not careless," Qui-Gon said.

"Deliberate is the way we're reading it, too.

But even professionals have been known to make mistakes." The commander walked over to the holoprojector. He was about to activate it, when one of his a.s.sistants intruded.

"Commander, the Verpine say that there are signs of well over a dozen men, several of whom arrived inside these tall containers. At some point, most of them gathered around what must have been a crate, just over here, perhaps to observe whatever images the holoprojector contains. Among them was a Gotal, who also arrived inside one of the containers. Bits of fur were found inside the second-to-last container, and also on the floor there, in large amounts."

"A tussle?" the commander asked.