"What do you think it will be?"

"I don't know. But we were wondering . . ."

". . . if I could go check it out. Do you know where he is now?"

Nek nodded. "We have him in the government district - the diplomatic wing of the Residence Tower. He's meeting with the Roshan delegation."

"This can't be good," Ferus said. "I'll be in touch."

Ferus leaped to the next wall, then ran lightly down the walkway. He hailed an air taxi and gave the driver the address. He handed over a wad of credits. "If you get me there in less than five minutes, you'll get more."

The driver looked at the credits in her hand. "I'll get you there before you can blink, with these."

The air taxi moved quickly through the traffic, weaving in and out of lanes and accomplishing a few highly illegal maneuvers. The driver proudly pulled up in front of the Residence Tower in four minutes flat. Ferus pressed another wad of credits in her hand and jumped out.

He waved his Imperial security tag at the sensor and the light blinked green. Ferus hopped aboard the turbolift. Being a double agent occasionally had its advantages. At least he didn't have to waste time breaking in.

He was whisked up to the two hundredth floor, a central lobby for the block of floors where visiting diplomats were housed during their stays in Sath. He stepped out into a luxurious s.p.a.ce. Ten different hallways spun out from the center. Ferus paused. He reached out for the Force. He picked up the Living Force around him. After only a moment he turned and sprinted down one of the hallways.

He paused in front of a transparisteel door. Outside was a combination landing platform and meeting room. The meeting room was encased in the same climate-controlled bubble that dotted many of the outdoor s.p.a.ces in Sath. Bog Divinian sat in an informal grouping with the Roshan delegation. The usual empty smile was on Bog's face, and Ferus watched as he gestured around toward the city surrounding them.

Nothing had happened . . . yet.

Bog's personal aide, a slender young woman named Nancer, stood nearby. Ferus noted that Bog's airspeeder was outside on the landing platform. Two Imperial airspeeders were parked nearby, each with two stormtroopers inside. Bodyguards for Bog, Ferus imagined.

Ferus accessed the door and slipped into the room. Nancer looked over at him but turned her attention back to Bog. She knew Ferus as a favorite of Palpatine's and would not interfere with him.

"So you see, even though I oppose the trade agreement, I don't oppose an alliance with Rosha, should I be elected," Bog was saying.

"Advisor Divinian, let us be frank," the senior Roshan diplomat said. Ferus remembered his name - Robbyn Sark. "You have spread misinformation about us among the people of Sath. Now they distrust our motives."

Bog waved his hands in the air as though he were swatting an insect. "Whether or not you had anything to do with sabotage of the Platform-7 computer -"

"No." Ferus admired Robbyn Sark's tone. The Roshan did not raise his voice, but the authority it carried had the power to silence even Bog Divinian. "We had nothing to do with the sabotage, and you know it. We are alone here, Advisor Divinian. Let's speak with honesty."

"Of course," Bog said blandly. "I'm a straight shooter. Always have been."

"You are opposing the trade agreement for your own reasons. They have nothing to do with the wellbeing of the two planets. Let's discuss how we could work together. You said you wanted to find a compromise."

"That's why I'm here," Bog said. "Let's find some common ground. I have a proposition for you. My speeder is outside. Come with me for a short trip around Sath. I have some things to show you. We can discuss the current situation in privacy."

Bog looked around the meeting room and leaned forward. "You can never trust meeting rooms where diplomats stay," he whispered. "We can speak freely in my speeder."

Robbyn Sark glanced at the four other Roshans. A signal pa.s.sed between them. Their delicate antennae, which looked more like tiny hairs, waved softly.

"All right," Robbyn Sark agreed.

Ferus followed, still unsure of what Bog was up to. He trailed after the others as they walked out onto the landing platform. Like all the platforms on Sath, it was regulated with cool air from the floor and overhang, and a fine mist also served to freshen the air.

Still, before them the buildings of Sath seemed to shiver in the heat, their outlines wavy and indistinct. The sun was low in the sky, at exactly an angle to bounce off the thousands of windows and the thin metallic skins of the buildings. It dazzled the eye and disoriented him. It took Ferus a moment to realize that the glint in the air above was not a reflection, but a moving airspeeder, coming at them at a direct angle and not slowing down to land. At the same time, something else caught his attention - at first he thought it was debris in the air. The specks were moving erratically, as if caught by a breeze. But there was no breeze.

Their droids are among the smallest in the galaxy with the most sophisticated systems.

Roshan droids.

Bog didn't seem to notice any of it. He fiddled with the PD on his shoulder as he gestured grandly at his luxurious airspeeder, saying something to Robbyn Sark that Ferus didn't hear.

"Watch out!" Ferus shouted, but it was too late. The silver airspeeder came in low and fast. Then to Ferus's astonishment the engines stopped dead. He saw a slight hooded figure in black lying flat on the hull. A liquid cable line snaked down and wrapped around Bog's personal droid. It was yanked upward.

Ferus saw Bog's frightened face as he dropped to the ground. The engines screamed back to maximum. Ferus was already moving, racing to the nearest airspeeder on the platform.

In the meantime, the stormtroopers had finally reacted and were blasting away at the fleeing air-speeder. Bog covered his head. The two Roshan droids turned and gave chase.

Ferus made the quick calculations even as he pushed the controls of the speeder. Someone had stolen Bog's personal droid, and it wasn't the resistance. They had no reason to. They had every reason for Bog to retain the droid. They knew what was on it. The proof of Bog's bribes were embedded in its programming. Ferus had to get the droid back.

The silver airspeeder headed straight for the thickly cl.u.s.tered tall buildings of Sath. The storm-troopers behind him didn't seem to mind if Ferus got caught in the middle. Swerving to avoid the fire behind him, Ferus moved to an upper traffic lane. With any luck the thief would notice only the storm-troopers in pursuit, not him.

He pushed his speed, trying to keep the silver speeder in sight below him but not attract attention. He saw the Roshan droids tracking, occasionally sending a thin beam of energy blasting toward the silver speeder that seemed so accurate Ferus was always surprised when it missed.

Screaming through the Sathan skies, Ferus called on the Force to help him maneuver. He pulled up just in time to avoid smashing into an airbus. The glare of the flashing reflections, the buzzing of the Roshan droids, and the traffic around and below him kept him busy.

Whoever was piloting the speeder sure knew how to fly. Ferus soared high above the speeder, tracking it through the s.p.a.ce lanes. One droid sent an arc of blaster fire toward it, but the speeder flipped over, flew upside down, and spiraled into an opening in the traffic above. Ferns had to admire the pilot's skill.

Who was it? If it wasn't the resistance, who could it be?

Chapter Thirteen.

"I think you can slow down," Trever said through clenched teeth. "The stormtroopers are falling behind."

"You don't slow down until you're home free," Flame said. "They aren't giving up. They're just trying to make me think they're giving up. I'd better drop you somewhere with the droid. Then we can meet up later. You can lose the speeders a lot easier on foot."

"Drop me?" Trever asked as Flame flipped the craft to one side to squeeze in between two buildings. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Don't worry." Flame laughed. "I'll get you down in one piece." She shot him an admiring glance. "I like your style, kid. You swiped that droid like a pro."

"I am a pro," Trever said. "I mean, I might have done a bit of, uh, unauthorized lifting of goods on Bella.s.sa." He shrank back as Flame zoomed into a tunnel, hugging the top of it to keep in the shadows. Trever felt as though the top of his head was going to slam against the wall of the tunnel.

"Funny how skills like that come in handy in the resistance," Flame said. As soon as they shot out of the tunnel, she flipped over and quickly descended three s.p.a.ce lanes. "I got most of my piloting skills from avoiding air traffic tickets."

Trever watched as she flew and scanned the buildings around at the same time. He glanced behind. The droids were still tailing them, but he couldn't see the stormtroopers now.

"This is our chance," she murmured. "The droids will follow me, most likely. I'm going to drop down into one of the courtyards. You're going to have to jump. Then start running. I'll contact you on your comlink when I think it's safe."

"All right." Trever crouched on his seat, Bog's droid on his shoulder.

The airspeeder dropped so quickly Trever felt sure he'd left his stomach up in the s.p.a.ce lane. But there was no time to get dizzy. The ground loomed toward him. The c.o.c.kpit canopy rolled back, and the wind blew in his face. He snapped his helmet cover down.

"If someone follows you, shoot," Flame said, tossing him a blaster. "Now jump!"

Ferus flew, taking chance after chance. With the help of the Force, he was finding holes in traffic to slip through that didn't exist fractions of a second before. The speeder below had lost the stormtroopers, but for how long?

In answer, he saw the stormtroopers suddenly appear, bursting out of a tunnel that the speeder had disappeared into. Suddenly the silver speeder below reversed direction and went into a dive. The stormtrooper airspeeders overshot it, tried to reverse, and made an awkward spinning turn that nearly sent one into an airbus while the other clipped a building. A tremendous air traffic snarl instantly locked everyone in place.

Ferus merely reversed his engines and went backward, cursing as he looked over his shoulder and tried to gauge distances between vehicles and swerving from one s.p.a.ce lane to another. He saw the silver speeder drop into a courtyard while the droids streaked past, just missing the speeder's fast descent.

Ferus. .h.i.t a hard right and hovered over a landing platform twenty stories up, monitoring the last of the silver speeder's descent. Someone tumbled out and the speeder zoomed off while the thief disappeared belowground into some sort of parking facility. Ferus parked his own vehicle and leaped out in one smooth movement, then Force-jumped twenty stories to the courtyard below.

He couldn't tell if the thief was a man or woman; he just knew whoever it was was slight and could run fast. He'd barely gotten a glimpse before the thief disappeared into the parking hangar.

He heard running footsteps on the permacrete and took off, snaking through parked speeders, ready to activate his lightsaber. He leaped over one speeder, and blasterfire streaked toward him. He lifted his lightsaber to deflect it back but stopped.

"Ferus! Don't!"

In a split second of incredible timing, Ferus managed to halt his movement and somersault away from the energy blasts. He leaped over the last speeder and onto the ground.

"Trever?"

Trever slowly rose, his head peeking over a c.o.c.kpit canopy. "You know, you're pretty good with that thing. A guy could get killed."

"What are you doing?" Ferus asked furiously. His hands were shaking. He had come close to deflecting fire back at Trever. He pushed the image of the boy lying on the ground, lifeless, out of his mind. Acknowledge the mistake, and move on.

Or, as Siri used to say, There's always time to kick yourself later.

He sprang forward and yanked on Trever's arm, pulling him into the relative safety of the shadows near the great pillars that held up the roof of the hangar.

"I'm helping the resistance," Trever said, shaking off Ferus's hand.

"I don't think so. Who was driving that speeder?"

"Flame. Torna was in contact with her."

"Who's Flame?" Ferus grabbed the droid. "Actually, I don't have time for this now - I have to get this back to Bog."

"You're going to take it back? Do you have any idea how hard it was to get it?"

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Helping you."

"I've got news for you." Ferus tucked the droid under his arm. "You're not helping."

"Watch out!" Suddenly, Trever slammed into Ferus, sending him flying. At the same time, Ferus saw the droids darting through the air, straight for him.

Chapter Fourteen.

Ferus pushed Trever under a heavy speeder and whirled up, clutching Bog's droid in one hand and his lightsaber in the other. The droids followed.

Why him and not Trever? He'd a.s.sumed they'd locked on Trever earlier. Their beaming accuracy had been aimed at the fleeing speeder. He'd been sure that they'd hit several times .. .

Wait a second.

Ferus backed up, leaping up on the roof of a speeder. Red beams of blaster energy shot out toward him. Instead of deflecting them, he stood motionless.

"Ferus!" Trever screamed.

The beams pa.s.sed over him harmlessly. Just as he'd suspected.

Ferus put Bog's droid on the top of the speeder and jumped down. The droids circled and came back. This time when they approached, he leaped up and caught both of them easily, one in each hand. "Wow," Trever said.

Ferus sat, turning the droids over in his hands. He checked the weapons system displays. Trever approached curiously. "What are you doing?"

"That blaster fire was benign. There was no charge. I'm just wondering why."

"We got lucky?"

"And they were locked onto Bog's personal droid." Ferus thought back to the moment on the landing platform when Trever had swiped Bog's droid. The Roshan droids had already been moving toward it. They'd been locked on to Bog's droid. For what? A demonstration?

Ferus stood, tucking the two Roshan droids into his pocket. "Come on. We've got to get back."

A disgruntled Trever followed him without a word. He quickly found the turbolift to the landing platform above. Ferus climbed into the pilot seat and indicated a cargo s.p.a.ce in the back. "You're going to have to hide in there." As Trever began to protest, Ferus cut him off. "Just do it. And don't say a word. I'll explain later."

He powered up the engines and rose into the traffic lanes. He saw patrolling airspeeders with stormtroopers, and some now on swoop bikes, flooding the s.p.a.ce lanes, looking for the silver craft. Ferus avoided them and entered a stream of traffic back toward the Residence Tower. The whole adventure had taken less than ten minutes.

He came in high, leaving Bog plenty of time to identify him. Stormtroopers ringed the platform, blaster rifles ready.

"Whoa. Maybe you'd better rethink this approach," Trever whispered, peeking out of the cargo compartment.

"Stay down! It's all right - they think I'm one of them, remember?"

As Ferus brought the vehicle down, he saw that Bog had retreated into the meeting room again. The Roshan delegation was gone. Bog was speaking to a short Sathan that Ferus recognized as the lead communications officer. A few other Sathans were in the room. Ferus tried to glimpse them through the glare of transparisteel. They looked like . . . reporters?

He got out, holding the droid. Bog saw him from inside. He said a few quick words to the others and came out, hurrying toward Ferus.

Ferus handed him the droid.

"You got it back." Bog's eyes narrowed. "Who took it?"