DEATH ON NABOO

CHAPTER ONE

Meetings with the Emperor were always unnerv-ing. Malorum just hoped this one wouldn't be fatal. Malorum paused outside the airlock to theEmperor's private office, high on the top floors ofthe Senate office building. He had undergone theweapons scan. As the Emperor's most loyal subject,it was a process he found insulting, but he had tosubmit to it. Once he went through those doors, he'dbe whisked in to see Palpatine by Sly Moore, thatmoonfaced nonentity who managed to slither herselfinto a position of power. Probably by blackmailing the right beings,Malorum thought, because he couldfind no other reason for her prominence. The usualjealous surge passed through him as he wondered,once again, why others got what he deserved.

He took a deep breath.

He needed a moment. He needed to remindhimself how well things were going. No matter whatlies Darth Vader had told the Emperor, Malorumknew the truth. He was the best Inquisitor theEmperor had. Ready now, Malorum strode through the door.He went through his usual battle of wills with Sly Moore. She glided her way toward him and he keptgoing to the door to Palpatine's inner office, so thatit wouldn't appear that he was waiting for her toaccess it. He just walked right through — slightlyahead of her, of course.

He timed it perfectly.

His small victory died a quick death as Palpatineswiveled in his chair to face him. Right away, Malorumknew this was not going to be a good meeting.

He gathered his courage and walked forwardinto the grand red room. He loved this office. Thebold red color, the bronzium statues of the FourSages of Dwartii, the access to datafeeds that spewedout information constantly. You felt you were trulyin the center of the galaxy, controlling everyone in it. Palpatine stared at him with his pale eyes.Malorum wished, not for the first time, that Palpatinehadn't been so hideously scarred by the battle withMace Windu. It was positively unnerving; you'd thinkthat with all that access to the Force he could find away to make himself look more attractive. WhenMalorum became Emperor (a thought Malorum onlyallowed to cross his mind occasionally; there was somuch farther to go) he would make sure to getplenty of rest and a rejuvenating trip to the excel-lent surgeons of Belazura once a year.

"Why did you give an order to blow up the JediTemple?" The Emperor shot the question at him. So much for preliminaries.

"I was following through on an order by LordVader —"

"He said that you would claim that."

"But it's true." Technically. Vader had made thesuggestion only to see how Malorum would react. Malorum had fallen right into his trap by protestingthat he had files that would be destroyed. The next thing he knew, Vader was taking him to task for hav-ing secret files that weren't registered with the Inquisitors' main databank.

He had taken a gamble, attempting to blow upthe Temple. He had actually enjoyed having hisoffice there. To walk into that grand hallway was athrill. It was visible evidence of the greatness van-quished by the power of the Empire. Proof that aForce connection wasn't enough; it was how youused the dark side of the Force that mattered.

He knew Emperor Palpatine was frustrated withthe apprentice he'd ended up with. He had expected someone with awesome power, but instead he gota rebuilt body in a breath mask. Darth Vader was powerful, but compared to what he could havebeen . . . well, who wouldn't be disappointed? What Palpatine needed was a new apprentice.Because of his Force-sensitivity, Malorum had been plucked out of obscurity. Palpatine had revealedthat he was a Sith. He had explained what the Forcewas in detail and how, with training, Malorum coulduse it for great things. Malorum had expected greater access becauseof that: dinners with the Emperor and his mosttrusted aides; confidences meant for him alone; invi-tations to Palpatine's private apartments in theexclusive 500 Republica residential tower. Instead,he himself was on the waiting list for an apartment,lined up with Senators and bureaucrats. It was infu-riating!

Now he was scrambling to please Palpatine andbeing undercut by Darth Vader at every turn.

"You exceeded your authority," Palpatine wenton. His gaze was as chilling as a month long vaca-tion on Hoth.

Malorum looked to the bronzium statues forinspiration, then turned his gaze back quickly. Hehad learned to stand his ground with the Emperor.Never argue. Present your case, then change thesubject if you can.

"The attack on Solace and her followers is pro-ceeding," he said. He unfurled his best piece of information, the one he was holding in reserve like anexpert sabacc player. "Everyone has been killed and the community destroyed. She is confirmed dead."

"And you saw this with your own eyes?"

"I received a report from the commander." Didthe Emperor really expect him to travel all the way down to the Core, to the ancient ocean caverns?

"A Jedi is not dead until you see the body. Informme when this is so." He had been dismissed. Malorum made an instantdecision to withhold the information that he had Ferus Olin in custody. He might need that at a futuredate. And he had plans for the former Jedi apprentice, plans that he was just beginning to form. Feruswas the only being he could find who could connect him to the old Darth Vader.

Malorum bowed and walked out, ignoring SlyMoore and proceeding directly to the express turbolift. As he descended into the Senate office building,he thought about what he knew . . . and what he still had to discover.

His most important piece of information wasthis: He knew that Darth Vader was AnakinSkywalker. The Emperor didn't know that Malorum knewthis. Before the tapes of the Temple attack had been erased, he had seen them. He hadn't been anInquisitor then, just one of the trusted Imperialintelligence officers sent to the Temple after Order66. He had seen what Anakin Skywalker had done.And he had seen the Jedi knight kneel down beforethe Emperor, who had called him "Darth Vader." Since then he'd made it his business to discovereverything he could about Skywalker. Bribes and surveillance and digging back into what had hap-pened months before.

He knew that Anakin Skywalker had been a Jediapprentice at the same time as Ferus Olin. He knewthat Skywalker was the father of Senator Amidala'schild, the child that had never been born. He sus

-pected that the Senator had been treated on PolisMassa, but so far the disappearance of records had stopped the trail cold.

Secrets contained surprises. Once you knew aperson's secrets, you had the key to destroying him. Ferus Olin would be the key.

CHAPTER TWO

It wasn't so bad, for a prison. Ferus had seenworse.

He stirred on the hard duracrete where heslept . . . and found himself face-to-face with thebiggest meer rat he'd ever seen, chewing on one ofhis boots.

Well. Maybe riot.

He tossed his other boot at the rodent and itscurried away. He figured he might as well look the facts in the face. He'd landed in the worst prison inthe galaxy, and unless someone near and dear tohim

— or even someone who didn't like him partic-ularly much, like Jedi Master Solace — rescued him,he was stuck here, worked to death until he wasexecuted.

It was the usual cunning plan of the Empire.Condemn the beings who displease you — don'tbother with a trial, because your suspicions areenough — then stick them all in a stinking hole on aplanet where nobody goes, force them to labor, don'teven let them speak to one another, and then, whenthey're too weak to do you a bit of good, executethem. What a swell system to be stuck in. Trust himto find it. So maybe breaking into the Temple wasn't thebestidea he ever had. And then he had to go and doit twice. No wonder Malorum had been testy.

He had been looking for Jedi. Rumors had swirledthat they were kept in a prison there. But the rumorswere designed as a trick to lure any Jedi into a res-cue attempt. Ferus had fallen right into the trap. The need to find every last Jedi was leading himto places he'd never expected to go. Obi-Wan Kenobi,now in exile on Tatooine, had refused to becomepart of his plans for a secret base. Ferus didn't letthat stop him. He knew there must be Jedi out therewho had survived the purge. They needed a sanctu-ary. He had stumbled on a remote asteroid thatconstantly traveled the galaxy within a moving atmospheric storm. He had two trusted aides set-ting up a camp there, Raina and Toma, as well as the recovering Jedi Knight Garen Muln.

When he'd found Jedi Master Solace, he'd dis-covered that she'd set up a community next to the forgotten underground oceans of Coruscant. Theraggedy society had built its homes on a series of catwalks over the sea in a vast cavern. When he'dtold Solace what he'd seen in the Temple — a roomfull of lightsabers captured from murdered Jedi—she had been stricken by sadness and anger. Thenhe'd told her that he'd overheard that there was aspy in her camp, and she'd become enraged. She'd talked him into breaking in again. He wouldneed lightsabers, she argued, for the Jedi he was sure were out there. And she needed to discover theidentity of her spy. So they'd broken into the base of the Temple,thanks to Solace's odd ship with a mole miner aboard. But they'd run into too many stormtroopers andmore trouble than they could handle. Now here hewas, in prison, with an execution order just waitingto be carried out.

He was given a number when he arrived: 987323.He was told not to talk to any other prisoner and notto ask the guards for anything because he wouldn'tget it anyway. "Not even for seconds on dessert?" he'd asked, and in response had received a forcepike in the stomach. That had taken hours to recover from. He had to remember to keep his mouth shut.

The situation was hopeless, he supposed, but hehad been trained as a Jedi, and so he resisted feeling hopeless. There was always a way. Or, as Yoda wouldsay, a waythere always is. He wondered about Trever, the thirteen-year-oldwho had pretty much adopted him as a guardian. Hehad been along to break into the Temple — bothtimes. He didn't seem to want to leave Ferus's side. Would Solace take care of him? Not that Treverwould let anyone take care of him, exactly. And not that Solace had the warmest of characters. Still, hehoped Trever was all right. He was a street thief andan explosives expert and a pain in the neck, but hewas still a boy.

The rat returned, and Ferus winged his boot at itagain. It retreated, baring its teeth in a rather human way that gave Ferus a chill. He hoped he wouldn'tsee those teeth sunk into his ankle later. Maybe sleeping wasn't such a good idea.

"Do you mind, chum?" The voice of his cellmaterose out of the corner. Ferus had been thrown into the cell in the pitch-black and hadn't met him yet. Hewas just a shape in the corner. "I'm trying to sleep."

"There's a meer rat —"

"You don't say. What a shock." Ferus could onlysee a gleam of pale skin across the space. "They liketo eat boots. Use them as a pillow."

"Use my boots as a pillow?"

"What, duracrete is such a nice cushion? Keep arock in your hand and crush its skull when you geta chance. Leave the body. The others will get themessage. Better do it or else you'll find one chewingon your face in the middle of the night."

"I don't have a rock."

Ferus could hear his cellmate's sigh. "Why do Ialways get stuck with the new guy? Heads up." A good-sized rock suddenly loomed out of the dark-ness. Ferus caught it, but if he hadn't had quickreflexes it would have bashed in the side of his head.

"Thanks. So where amI?"

"Dontamo Prison. But don't worry, you won't be here long. One day soon you'll be dead."

"I got that impression. Has anyone ever escaped?"

"Death is your escape, my friend." Ferus heardhis cellmate turn over to face him. Now he could see the gleam of his eyes. "All right,I can see that I won'tget any sleep until I give you the lowdown. Whateveryou do, don'tget sick. No one who goes to the infir-mary ever comes back. Second, don't talk to anyoneduring the day. And don't talk to me unless you haveto.I have a whole fantasy world going on in my head,and I don't like to be interrupted. I'm on a picnicwith my wife, and the sun is shining, and I'm aboutto eat one of her sweetberry tarts."

"You're married?"

"Never ask a personal question," the prisonercontinued. "Never fall down. Never tell anyoneyou're innocent. Nobody had a trial here, so we'vegot the innocent and the guilty and it makes no dif-ference. Nothing matters here except putting inyour time until you get to die. Everybody fights over rations. That's the currency here. Eat fast. And onelast thing, the most important thing — don't crossPrisoner 677780. He runs the gang here. We just callhim 67. Don't even catch his eye. You'll be sorry ifyou do."

"Got it. Thanks."

"My advice is, think of the best day of your lifeand replay it in your head. Now leave me alone." Ferus felt his cellmate turn away. He lay on hisback, staring at the ceiling, and clutching the rock. Was this all he had left? Hanging on to a memory,replaying it until death came for him? Best day of his life . .

He and Roan, on a hiking trip on the neighboringworld of Tati, deep in the forest, coming upon a waterfall that slid into a deep pool of green. Theyhad been so hot, and they'd dived in, straight to the bottom. The water was so cold they came up shiver-ing and laughing. . . . He heard the rat scuttling forward and he broughthis hand down, hard, with the rock in his fist. The rat lay still.

Those Jedi reaction skills sure could come inhandy. . . .

CHAPTER THREE

Trever flattened himself on the metal walkway.He heard the ping of blaster fire and the cries from people being hit. He smelled smoke from the deto-nators and the burning dwellings. He heard thesound of bodies falling.

He was hiding, his usual position in a battle. Butthis time it was different. This time he couldn'tmove. His fingers shook as he curled them aroundthe grating underneath him. His hiding place wasgood, behind one of the Imperial troops' own speed-ers. There was a guard, but he hadn't seen Trever.For a brief moment Trever had thought of stealingthe speeder, but he knew he'd be blasted to bits inseconds. When he and Solace had returned from the disas-ter at the Jedi Temple, Solace had heard the battlebefore he did. She had leaped off the ship andstraight into the thick of it. He had seen battles before, but none like this.He had run from Imperial officers, he had brokeninto buildings, he had taken the risks needed tomaintain his own black-market operation, but thiswas different. This was terrifying. The eerily whitestormtroopers were bent on annihilating everythingin their path.

He had caught glimpses of Solace, fighting furi-ously to save her followers. He'd seen her moving, diving, never losing her balance or her grace despitethe ferocity of her attack. Her lightsaber was a bea

-con of light, glowing green through the smoke.

She would lose. She would hold out as long asshe could, but she could not win. There were simply too many of them. Almost everybody was dead now.Slaughtered without thought, without pause. Rhya Taloon was dead. He saw her die. She'dbeen a Senator once, until they targeted her forprison or worse and she had joined the Erased, thegroup who'd destroyed their former identities andhid in the lower levels of Coruscant. She had fash-ioned a new, fierce look for herself, twisting hersilver hair into horns and wearing holsters acrossher body. She'd learned how to shoot a blaster, but she'd never been very good at it.

He and Ferus had traveled down here with othermembers of the Erased, but now they were dead, too. It must be so, because all he could see werebodies. Among them lay Hume, who'd once been apilot in the Republic Army. Gilly and Spence, thebrothers who hardly spoke. Oryon, the fierce Bothanwho'd been a spy for the Republic during the CloneWars. Curran Caladian, the young Svivreni who'donce been a Senatorial aide, had leaped to defendthe houses in the central catwalk. Trever had seen the stormtroopers send flame grenades into the homesand had turned away.

And Keets Freely, the journalist. Trever hadseen his body, bloodied and battered, as he andSolace had run up to investigate. He couldn't believeit, couldn't believe that the mocking, indestructibleKeets could fall. But fall he did, from a platformabove, landing at Trever's feet. That had been thebeginning of Trever's true terror.

In the short time he'd been traveling with them,they'd all become his friends. And now he didn'tknow what to do or where to go, because he wassure that this was the day he would die. A new voice rose in his mind, not a voice of fearbut impatience. Well, if you're going to die, show some guts,will you?

He slowly, painstakingly, raised his head, ready for it to be blown off at any moment. The battle had moved to an upper level of thecatwalks and landings that twisted so crazily belowthe cavern walls. But there wasn't much battle left.He saw a few holdouts, but they were surroundedand soon would be dead. He wrenched his gazeaway. He couldn't watch anymore, couldn't bear itanymore. .

. .

Suddenly a streak through the smoke made himraise his head. Solace had made an incredible leap, jumping down from the topmost catwalk to the onejust above Trever's head. Stormtroopers were pouring down the ramps after her. In another fewmoments they would corner her. And he was here, hiding like a coward.

He had to help her, and do it fast. But how?

Stop hiding, Trever. That would be a start.

He snaked behind the other speeders and wasable to get a better look above. The stormtrooper guarding the speeders turnedaway from the noise of battle to take a communication — he could see him speaking into his helmet,straining to hear over the noise — and Trever leaped closer to the stairs that led to the next level. Helanded behind a smoking heap of twisted metal thathad once been a house. He slammed into a body andnearly levitated out of the space in terror until astrong hand clamped on his leg.

"Don't move."

It was Oryon, the Bothan. His face was black-ened with smoke, his long mane a tangled mass. His tunic was torn and a long scratch ran down his upperarm. His eyes were reddened from the acrid smoke. He was the fiercest thing Trever had ever seen.

"Solace is —" Trever panted.

"I know. Do you have any charges left?"

Trever nodded, ashamed. He had been too afraidto set off many of his charges. He had hidden instead.

"I've got some grenades," Oryon said. "It mightbe enough."

"What are we going to do?"

"Blow the whole platform."

"But she'll fall."

"She's a Jedi. She'll survive. But they won't."

"Uh, and what about . ." Trever gulped. "Us?"

"We'll do it from below, then get back to thisplatform." Trever glanced down through the grate to theblack sea below."Below?"he squeaked.

"Are you ready?"

Ready? I'm ready to run the other way.

No — keep it together.

Trever nodded.

"Follow me."

Oryon took two strides and suddenly flipped him-self over the catwalk railing. Trever moved cautiouslyforward and hung over the railing in astonishment.He saw that there were handholds and footholdsbelow the grating, just random pieces of metal that you could hang on to in order to scrabble your wayacross, moving underneath the grating like a crab.Far, far below he saw the moving black sea. There was nothing else to do but go over. A smallpart of him was pleased that Oryon was treating himas a comrade, assuming without question that hewould do this. Ferus would have told him to continue hiding behind the speeder. Trever swung one leg over, searching for a holdunderneath. Then he slowly slid his hands downuntil his other toe found a hold.

They made their way upside down, looking upthrough the grating. Sometimes they had to curltheir fingers through the grating itself to make prog-ress. He just hoped that a stormtrooper didn't stepon his fingers. Those boots looked pretty lethal.Trever knew his fingers would be raw after this, butstrangely, the fear had left him and a grim determi-nation to finish the job was pushing him forward. When they were close, Oryon signaled him andspoke in his ear. "You have to go ahead. Set the timers for thirty seconds. That will give you enoughtime to get back. Then I'll throw the proton grenadesfrom here. Set the charges carefully so only that cat-walk blows."

Trever scrabbled forward, his fingers aching. Hewould have to find a good place to anchor his feet and one hand while he reached into his utility belt.He made his way more quickly now, used to the feeling of being upside down. When he saw the whitestormtrooper boots above, he set one charge, wedging it into the catwalk, then another and another,his biggest alpha charges. By the time he finished,his fingers were scraped raw.

Counting in his head, he went backward to whereOryon waited. "Five seconds," he grunted to the Bothan.

"Go," Oryon whispered.

Trever quickly scrabbled back in the directionhe'd come. But he couldn't resist stopping to watch Oryon toss the grenades.

Oryon dropped one powerful arm and lobbed thegrenade. It shot straight out then curled aroundthe edge of the catwalk, sailing over the railing andonto the platform above. Without pausing, he threwthe other three grenades.

Trever felt the explosion against his eardrums.Oryon was moving fast toward him, hand over hand. The catwalk had become a living thing, buckling andwaving. It could break at any moment. He risked another look back. The platform abovewas cracking, metal parting from metal with a groan-ing, scraping sound. The stormtroopers were startingto fall into one another as they desperately searchedfor traction. Some were trying to vault to safety tothe catwalk or the platform below. Solace was the only one who used the explosionsto her advantage. She had ridden the blast like a wave and had shot into the air. Trever watched,breathless, as she somersaulted away from the stormtrooper army and fell — no, not fell,soared,completely in control — past the stormtroopers,over the groaning metal, over the heat, over thesmoke, and down, down to the sea below.

"Hurry," Oryon urged Trever, his voice hoarse."We've got trouble." To Trever's horror, he saw that the catwalk wasmelting from the heat, shaking loose from the plat-form above. It must have been weakened from thebattle's blaster fire. They couldn't make it to safety,he could see that. The catwalk began to fishtail asthe platform above broke into pieces, sending stormtroopers sliding into the sea below.

"You've got to let go!" Oryon shouted. "We're notgoing to make it!"

"Let go? Are you nuts?" Trever felt his fingerscramp from trying to hold on to the twisting catwalk.

"It's the only way!" Oryon looked at him, his eyesintense. He suddenly flipped his legs forward and wrapped them around Trever's waist. Then he let go with one hand and pulled Trever against him. Trever felt the strength of Oryon's arms and legs, pure thickmuscle. "I'll be with you." Trever looked down. The sea looked black anddangerous. And very far away.

"I just want you to know something," he said toOryon. "I can't swim!" And then he let go.

CHAPTER FOUR

That brief conversation turned out to be one ofthe few Ferus had with his cellmate. Ferus knew his number — 934890 — but his cellmate never con-fided his name or anything else about himself. Theonly sentences he uttered were along the lines of"Move your boots." Within a day Ferus became used to the routine,because he had to. Any hesitation about where toline up or what to do was met with a blow and acurse from the Imperial guards. He was a step aheadof the other new prisoners. His Jedi training hadtaught him how to anticipate, how to read bodycues, how to, as the Jedi said, "See without looking."He was able to enter the flow of the prison withoutdisturbance. Also, like a Jedi, he was planning his escape. Theonly problem was the sheer impossibility of it. He had never seen so many guards for one prison. Therewere few exits that he could see. The prison itself was a square inside a square. The cells were in theinterior, and the food hall was in the outer square in one corner. They left every day and marched downan underground tunnel to the factory. There didn't seem to be any laundry facilities and the prisonerswho had been here for some time looked half-deadand wore rags.

He had seen upon arrival --because they'dwanted him to see it — that the prison was set on asmall planet with a dense jungle surrounding it.There were no cities or spaceports, only the smalllanding platform outside the prison and a largerspaceport floating within the inner atmosphere above. It was clear that his only opportunity to escapewould hinge on the factory. They were forced towork and production levels were high. Obviouslywhat they were doing was more than busy work; itwas important to the Empire. That meant therewould be a regular pickup service and a deliverysupply service, most likely the same ship. That shipwould be his way out. Somehow.

He would have to wait to discover the routine.He'd keep his head down, follow the rules, and not make a stir.

He wished he'd kept his lightsaber. He hadhanded it to Solace, knowing they would have takenit when they captured him. He couldn't bear thethought that his lightsaber, the lightsaber that hadonce been Garen Multi's, would be tossed on a pilewith the hundreds of others, lying on a floor in astorage room at the Temple. He had seen that pile,each lightsaber representing a life, and it had been aheartbreaking sight. Ferus adopted the shuffle-walk of the other pris-oners. He didn't try to catch anyone's eye. He didn'tspeak. He could tell that the silence would get on hisnerves after a while. He had never considered him-self a social creature, but he'd come to realize afterhe left the Jedi that a life of solitude was not for him.He didn't like to live inside his own head.

The prisoners were kept on starvation rations.When they'd arrived, they were each run through a bio-scanner that determined the minimum nutritiontheir bodies needed to survive. Then their mealswere calibrated by droids and individually dished out.That left them with just enough strength to work. By the time the midday meal came, they wereravenous. Still they had to walk slowly and stay inline as they slid their trays along a long counter.Droids served the food, first flashing a scanner atthe ID tag on their uniforms. This gave them thenutrition count for the inmate. They then used amachine to dish out some sort of mealy glop andanother equally mysterious portion of something. Still, it was nourishment, and Ferus found hismouth watering. He would eat whatever was givento him, because he'd need his strength when thetime came.

The droid wheeled around, stuck a spoon in alarge tin, then wheeled back and deposited it on Ferus's tray. Then another scoop of the other mass,whatever it was. Ferus didn't care. He began to shuffle forward, keeping his eyes on the back of theneck of the prisoner in front of him. They would allfile to long benches at tables and would have a fewminutes to eat.

He was so intent on the idea of food — he couldnot remember the last time he ate a meal — it must have been at that mangy bar down at the Coruscantcrust — that he wasn't alert when suddenly, the prisoner ahead of him turned and, in a movement sosmooth it must have been done many times, scooped Ferus's food off his tray onto his own.

But if Ferus was a bit slow, he caught up. He sawin a glance that the inmate was tall, with enormousfeet and hands and gray stubble on his skull. In alightning flash of reflexes, he put one knee in thesmall of the prisoner's back and one arm around histhroat. At the same time, he grabbed the food with the other hand and scooped it back onto his tray.

Lunch might be disgusting, but he wasn't aboutto miss it.

The prisoner in front of him gagged from thepressure on his throat and tripped. His own tray went flying. Quickly Ferus released his hold and by the timethe guard turned he was staring clown at the floor, mimicking the exhausted shuffle of the others.

"Keep moving!" The guard lifted his force pikeand brought it down on the prisoner's shoulder.He fell, dropping his tray as he went down. Still hereached for the food, even as one arm dangled use-lessly. Maliciously the guard kicked the tray away sothat he couldn't reach it. Ferus kept on walking. He ate his food quickly.He had been lucky, he decided. The scene had been over quickly and the guards hadn't seen him.

The prisoners lined up again to walk to the fac-tory. Ferus felt someone behind him and realized it was his cellmate.

"That was a mistake." The tone was low and gut-tural behind him. Ferus spoke softly out of the side of his mouth."At least I kept my lunch."

"Your lunch is the least of your problems, myfriend. You just tangled with Prisoner 67. Your problems are just beginning."

CHAPTER FIVE

Trever felt the impact of the water against hisribs and his teeth. He lost his breath and his abilityto think. It was like hitting a wall. Everything wasblack, and he lost consciousness for a moment. Somehow, Oryon kept hold of him. When hecame to he was still against the Bothan's body. They were plummeting down into the dark water. Hecould feel Oryon's long tangled hair swirling aroundhim like water snakes and was conscious of only onethought:

Up.

He didn't want to die underwater.

Oryon began to fight the momentum pushingthem downward. Trever could feel the effort in every muscle. He himself felt as though he had lost controlof his own body. He had never felt so helpless. He felt Oryon's struggle to move toward air. Hewas kicking his powerful legs but his arms were still wrapped around Trever. With an enormous effort of will, Trever pushed himself away and began to kick on his own. Oryon kept hold of one of his arms, butnow with one arm free he was able to make more progress. In this lopsided fashion they managed tostroke their way up. They surfaced in a burning landscape. Trevergulped down air that tasted of smoke and burning fabric. He didn't know how to swim, but he was able tokeep himself afloat, treading water frantically. Deadstormtroopers and pieces of shattered white armorlittered the water, though most had sunk below.

"Not so much motion," Oryon said, trying tocatch his breath. "You'll tire yourself out." Trever discovered that he was able to stay upwithout using as much energy. He didn't likewater —

never had — but here he was.Acceptanceis the key to survival. Actually, it could be the key to everything.

Hey, thanks, Feri-Wan,Trever thought. Maybe there's something to that Jedi stuff after all.

"We have to find Solace," Oryon said.

It had been a tremendous fall, but they both hadno doubt she was alive. He found he was able to paddle behind Oryon.They passed chunks of floating wreckage, but it was too hot to touch and offered no perch to rest. Theysearched through the blackness for Solace. AllTrever could see was burning material and blackwater. Twisted metal still hung overhead, threaten-ing to crash down on them at any moment.

"Over here," Oryon grunted. After a moment ofpaddling, Trever saw what he'd spotted — someone clinging to a piece of wreckage.

The man was so blackened and bloody it tookTrever a moment to realize it was Keets.

"I thought you were dead," Trever said as theymade their way up to him. Keets opened his eyes. "You mean I'm not?"

"Not yet," Oryon said.

Keets was clearly exhausted and in pain. "I sliddown the leg of the scaffold and fell in. Surprised I didn't drown. This almost fell on top of me. It's prob-ably the only thing out here that floats. So . . . what'sthe plan?"

"Find Solace," Oryon said. "She's got to have an escape route."

"That doesn't sound like much of a plan," Keetsobserved, wincing.

"Okay," Oryon said dryly, "now I know you'll live.You're giving me a hard time already." A ripple in the dark water made them tense anddraw closer to the wreckage. Trever knew they wereall thinking of the giant sea creatures they'd glimpsedon the long climb on the catwalks when they'd arrived. No doubt the creatures had dived deeper toescape the fire on the water, but there was always a chance that an inquisitive — or hungry — creaturewould return for lunch. Then a dark head surfaced and they breathed asigh of relief.

"Ready to get out of here?" Solace asked.

"I'd say so," Keets said.

"The others?" Solace asked.

Oryon shook his head. Keets's face tightened.

"They attacked so quickly," he said. "Hume diedtrying to save a group they surrounded. Rhya . . ."

"I saw her die," Trever whispered.

"Gilly and Spence went to the rear flank. That'swhere the heaviest fighting was," Oryon said. "They couldn't have survived. And Curran was caught in afirestorm when they torched the houses." Keets shook his head. "Poor Curran. He was justa kid."

"We'll get out," Solace said. "We can get tomy transport. It's not far —" She broke off sud-denly.

"Wait."

It took them a few seconds longer, but they heardit — the whirring sound of an air speeder. They tookrefuge behind the wreckage, ducking in back of it asthe silver craft zoomed over their heads and made aprecarious landing on a partially collapsed catwalk directly over their heads.

"Malorum," Solace breathed.

The commander of the stormtroopers hurriedforward, trying to look purposeful despite the factthat he was picking his way carefully. It was clear hedidn't quite trust the buckled catwalk. They could hear the voices overhead echoing offthe cavern walls. "Report," Malorum snapped.

"Over half our force has been lost —"

"I don't care about your losses. Where are therebels?"

"We wiped out the community, sir. Including theErased we were tracking."

"And the one called Solace?"

"Dead, sir."

"Show me the body."

Solace let out a breath.

"She . . . fell, Inquisitor Malorum. Into the sea."

"Did you see her fall?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you see her drown?"

"I saw her go into the water. . ."

"Get some lights down there!" Malorum roared."I want a body!" Within moments, powerful halo lights began tosweep the dark water.

"We've got to swim for it, and fast," Solace whis-pered. "Underwater. Oryon, you take Trever and I'lltake Keets." She handed out Aquata breathers toKeets and Trever. Oryon had one of his own.

"Nobody has to take me," Keets protested, but itwas clear that he needed help.

"Don't argue — it gets on my nerves," Solacesaid, hooking an arm around his chest. "Ready?" Oryon hooked an arm around Trever. "Ready."

Taking a deep breath, they slipped beneath thesurface as the lights crisscrossed the water. Moreand more lights appeared, penetrating the water, andTrever couldn't see how they would escape. Solace swam deeper, her powerful legs kicking. Suddenlyblaster fire ripped into the water ahead of them. Something exploded behind them. The stormtroop-ers were shooting into the water randomly, probably on Malorum's orders. And they were sending down explosive devices as well. It was impossible, Trever thought, twistingthrough the cold water with Oryon. The water wasso cold he could barely feel his feet or hands. Heknew his body was failing him. Solace continued tostroke ahead, but he could feel Oryon tiring. Even aBothan couldn't keep up with a Jedi. And there weretoo many lights now to get to Solace's ship withoutbeing seen.

He didn't know how he found the strength to goon, but watching Solace's strength somehow helped him. When she felt them flagging, she swam behindthem and hooked a line onto Oryon's belt, thenswam forward, Keets now on her back, his eyesclosed. With immense effort, she pulled all of themthrough the water.

When they finally surfaced, they were far fromthe scaffolding where the stormtroopers were searching. They could see the lights play on thewater far down the tunnel. Solace stared back at the demolished community.

"I'm sorry," Oryon said.

"It's all right," Solace said. "Nothing lasts. I pre-pared for this day. If I hadn't been away, I could havegotten them all out. I had a plan . . . but they had aspy. It was Duro. My trusted assistant. It had to be.They got to him — offered him money, threatenedhim — and he agreed to betray us. He was the only one except me who knew about the warning system.He must have turned it off."

"I'm afraid you're right," Oryon said. "I saw Durobeing given a speeder to escape in." Solace's mouth tightened as she stared down atthe smoke and fire. She turned back to them, herface now expressionless. "So you see, it was my mis-take that killed them. I trusted him."

"There is always a reason to have only two toshare information," Oryon pointed out. "Any moreand you greatly increase the risk of betrayal. It's afirst rule of a resistance. Information isn't shared."

"I know. I chose the wrong person to trust."

"Traitors exist everywhere."

Solace made an impatient move, reluctant tokeep the discussion going.

"Keets, are you conscious?"

"Of course I'm conscious," he growled. "Would Imiss all the fun?"

"Can you make it a little farther? You all will haveto swim on your own for about twenty meters. I have a duplicate ship hidden underwater, but I haveto get there alone. My last resort. I guess we've reached it."

Keets was able to smile wanly. "If ever there wasa last resort, this is it."

"I'll help Keets, too," Oryon said.

Trever made a silent vow that if they made it tosafety, somehow he would learn how to swim. Hefelt like a baby bird, flapping his arms and legs, des-perately trying to propel himself. He was making progress, but at every moment he was certain if hehadn't been tethered to Oryon, he would sink. Oryon moved more slowly, more cumbersomelythrough the water now, saddled with Keets and Trever. Solace had disappeared. Trever saw howKeets was straining to make himself light in thewater, keep himself moving. The effort, Trever saw,was exhausting him. Keets' skin was so pale it shonelike a pallid moon. His mouth was stretched over histeeth in a grimace. He was shaking uncontrollably.Still, he kept kicking his legs, swimming to safety,pushing his body past his own endurance. Just when Trever thought he would gladly giveup and sink under the cold water, they saw the glintof durasteel and suddenly the starship was abovethem, hovering. They could see Solace in the pilot'sseat. The ramp lowered, just above the surface ofthe water, and Oryon pushed Keets onto it. He man-aged to crawl forward until Solace slipped down andpicked him up easily, gently, and brought him aboard. Trever felt Oryon's push and scrambled up ontothe ramp awkwardly, as if he had hooves instead of feet. He tumbled into the cockpit. Oryon followed.He had abandoned his boots in the water and was barefoot, his furred feet bloodied. They fell morethan sat in the cockpit seats. Solace had placedKeets on a bunk.

Without a word, she pushed the engines andthey shot out through the cavern. Trever didn'tknow where they were headed . . . and he was tooexhausted to care.

CHAPTER SIX

Escape would feel good right about now. If onlyFerus could figure out how to accomplish it. Withouta lightsaber, he would have to be much moreresourceful. And that, of course, was the problem. He was running out of resources, fast. Including hisown strength.

Ferus had been here for only two days,but already he was feeling the effects of too littlesleep, not enough food, and crushing, repetitivework.

Every day they were marched into a factory.Ferus could see that it had been recently built, per-haps shortly after Palpatine had declared himselfEmperor. It had been thrown up hastily, so therewere already cracks in the floor and ceiling, cracksthat let in both a stinging rain and a barrage of fat,hungry insects with strong pincers that drew blood.

If you flinched, you received a blow from the guards,so you learned never to flinch. You worked. Ferus couldn't tell what they were manufactur-ing, only that it was a piece of something larger.The inmates were switched day to day from onetask to another. Were they working on weapons?Machinery? Droids? The parts were too small or tooobscure to tell. There were murmurs about an "ulti-mate weapon," but Ferus couldn't figure out what itcould be.

Every so often prisoners were pulled off theline and taken away, and no one ever saw themagain. Ferus knew his days were numbered. Hewould die at the whim of Malorum. Most likely theInquisitor was delaying his execution just to makehim suffer.

Everyone avoided him now. His cellmate plannedto fake an illness to get into the infirmary. Ferus spoke to him just before lights out.

"But you said that nobody who gets transferredthere ever gets out," Ferus reminded his cellmate ina whisper.

"I'd rather be killed with a shot in the arm by amed droid than be caught in the crossfire with you,"he answered.

"Listen," Ferus said, "I can handle myself. And Idon't intend to die here." His cellmate looked at him, his tired gaze rueful."You're one of those who think they can escape. All the more reason for me to go. You're trouble becauseyou don't get it. There's no way out."

"There's always a way out."

"Well." The cellmate stretched out his legs andlaughed. "You have your way and I have mine." His laugh, to Ferus, was the loneliest sound inthe galaxy, a winter wind on a world of high deserts. He could hear in that laugh the sound of someoneready to die.

Four guards came and escorted him out roughly.Ferus watched him go with sorrow. He had a feelingthat in another life, he would have liked his cell-mate's company. He had never known his name.

Morning. Or, at least, he guessed it was morning.He hadn't seen the sun since he'd arrived. Or the moon or the sky. All this duracrete was starting toget to him. He was locked in a world of gray rock. He could see around him how the skin tones of the oth-ers, even the blue or green skin of other species,were all turning gray.

He waited for the sound of the automatic lockthat snapped simultaneously on all the cells. Theywere then expected to file out within three secondsor find the end of a force pike jabbed in their ribs. He pulled on his boots and stood by the door,waiting. Today, he decided. Today something had to change. He had to find something — a weak link inthe chain, a sloppy guard, an unguarded door. Today would be the first day taken toward escape.

The locks snapped; the start of another back-breaking day.

Ferus stepped out into the corridor and theywere on him immediately. He had felt no surge of danger.

Prisoner 67 and five of his henchmen surroundedhim in a bloc and pushed him forward into the lineup.Prisoner 67 slipped immediately behind him. Out ofthe corner of his eye, Ferus saw that 67's enormoushands were poised to wrap around his throat.Meanwhile, unseen by the guards, the other four pressed close to Ferus, keeping his arms pinned tohis sides. He could feel the surprising strength oftheir grip. Obviously stealing food from otherinmates had its advantages.

Ferus understood his problem immediately, in aflash that gave him every option, recalling his Jedi training. He had no weapon. He had no means ofescape, for if he stepped out of line the guards wouldkill him as easily as a slug — he'd seen it happen.

If he fought Prisoner 67 — which, of course, hemeant to do — he was certain that 67's henchmen would simply step aside, break up the shield, andwatch as Ferus was taken away by the guards. Attacking another prisoner could yield several differ-ent results, all of them bad. You could be hauled awayto be tortured or just killed on the spot. It justdepended on the mood of the guards. And they werealways in bad moods.

All of this ran through Ferus's mind in less timethan it took for Prisoner 67 to step squarely behind him. 67's hands came up — big, meaty slabs capableof crushing Ferus's windpipe. Ferus decided to use a Jedi combat method,what one of his instructors had called "attacking backward." He would reverse an offensive move andfight his attacker without ever turning to engagehim. Fun in a classroom fighting against otherPadawans, but somehow in a brutal prison whereanything goes .

. . not so fun.

Ferus gave a sudden twist and a hard jab, loos-ening the grip of the prisoners next to him. But 67 was just as quick. One thick forearm wrapped aroundhis throat. Ferus felt his vision go gray. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he sawsomething — a flicker, a glimmer — that translated quickly into the sight of a plastoid datacard wingingthrough the air with incredible velocity and spin. Its speed was so fast it was almost invisible. Ferusducked and it hit Prisoner 67 in the center of theforehead. His eyes rolled up and he fell heavily.

The guards heard the thump and rushed towardthe sound, but by the time they reached it Ferushad already melted forward a few steps. Even thehenchmen, though stunned, were able to mergewith the crowd.

The indifferent guards dragged the body away.

Ferus searched the crowd without seeming tolook, a Jedi technique. Whoever his rescuer was, he couldn't see him. He had rejoined the crowd. Feruscould see the other prisoners' eyes moving, also searching. No one had seen the source of the silentattack.

Baffled, Ferus marched into the factory with theothers. Another day of grueling work. Another meal of slop.

But he had something now he didn't have before.There were only a few in the galaxy who had the skill and the knowledge to turn a datacard into alethal weapon, who could throw it from that distance without being seen.

One of them was his friend.

It was near the end of the day, as he was stand-ing by a noisy machine, feeding bits of durasteel into it to create continuous sheets and trying not to gethis fingers cut off in the process, when he heard a familiar voice directly behind him.

"Fancy meeting you here, Olin. Thought youpreferred classier joints." Ferus grinned without turning. "Your kind ofplace, Flax," he murmured under his breath. His rescuer had been exactly who he'd hoped hewas. Clive Flax — lowlife musician. Industrial spy. Double agent.

Things were looking up.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The passageways were so narrow they had toabandon the speeder, hiding it behind some trashcompacting machines. They didn't think they couldtake another step, but Oryon, Solace, Keets, and Trever kept walking. Trever couldn't remember thelast time he'd slept or eaten. Time was a blur, and fatigue was lead in his bones.

Solace had meandered around the levels ofCoruscant, hoping to stir up any possible surveil-lance so that she could identify it. Only when shewas sure they weren't being trailed did she fol-low Oryon's directions to Dexter Jettster's secrethideout.

It was in the very outskirts of the Orange District.The district had received its nickname when its inhabitants had continually changed the glowlightsto orange, despite the efforts of Coruscant Utilitiesto keep the clear white glow intended to discouragecrime. Those in the Orange District didn't care much about crime. They preferred the dim glow of privacy.

It had been only a few days since Trever had firstbeen here with Ferus, searching for Dexter Jettster and hoping he could give them information on amissing Jedi. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. Oryon led them down a narrow alleyway underthe eerie orange light. The buildings here were smoothly rounded at the corners and no higher thanten or twelve stories, unusual on Coruscant. They gave the impression of gentle hills if you squintedhard, but if you really looked you realized that thelack of windows made them creepy. Trever couldsee the slits in the walls that served as lookouts. Hefelt the strong sensation of being watched.

Every time he thought they had come to the endof the alley, it turned another way or doubled back on itself. The buildings seemed to hang over themcloser and closer as they walked. On Coruscant you grew used to the constantnoise, the hum of speeders and conversations andthe whirr of airbuses. The quiet here was unnerving.They could hear their footsteps and their breathing.Oryon stopped in front of a dwelling identical toall the others they had passed. He hesitated outside the door. Trever was about to ask why when he realized that Oryon was allowing whoever was inside to see him clearly, as well as his companions. Then hewalked forward and punched in a code at the door.It slid open almost immediately.

They entered a hallway lit dimly by powered-down glowlights. A ramp led to an upper level; Oryon climbed it, motioning them to follow. He walkeddown another hallway, this one wider, but with anodd combination of clinical and military objects. Adurasteel cart rested against one wall and a pile ofweapons was neatly arranged in a rack. A shelfof medicines rested on a tray. Trever didn't know ifhe was in a hospital or a barracks.

Oryon accessed a door midway down the hall.Dexter Jettster sat on a chair that was reinforced to accommodate his bulk. Against one wall was a solebare table. The far, opposite wall was entirely filledup with security screens. In a glance Trever couldsee that they effectively covered the entire alley-way, the roof, the houses next door, the sky above,and the entrance to the alley, at least two kilome-ters away. Dexter raised himself from the chair and low-ered his head, tilting it toward them in a way thatTrever remembered from his last meeting. It sig-naled Dex's surrender to deep emotion.

"Glad to see you." He nodded at Solace. "Happyto see you survived." He scanned them. "But not all of you made it back."

Oryon spoke first. "We know Rhya and Hume aredead. Gully and Spence — we believe so. And Curranas well."

Dex shook his head. "No, no, not the wily Curran.He's not dead."

"I'm sorry," Oryon said. "It's impossible that hecould have survived —"

"Impossible? No. Improbable, yes. He's here — alittle the worse for wear, mind you. He stole an Imperial speeder and met a wall with some force,but he'll do just fine. Looked a bit like Keets therewhen he arrived. Come on then. I have a med cen-ter, if you can call it that. A med droid to take careKeets, and food for everyone."

Dex led them to a blank wall and waved his handover a portion of it. The wall slid back. Curran sat up in a med pod while a droid checkedhis vitals. His furred face lit up when he saw them."Keets! I saw you hit."

"They can hit me, but they can't kill me," Keetsreplied. The med droid rolled closer, its sensors blinking."Weak vitals. Sit on pod." Keets moved to a pod next to Curran and sat."Gladly."

"We'll leave you to it," Dex said. "If you're clearedto join us, we'll be in the galley."

"I'll be cleared," Keets promised.

"Negative, vitals too weak," the droid said.

"I'll be cleared, you clanking heartless hunk ofsensors," Keets said. "Now fix me up, quick." He lay back and closed his eyes, finally giving in to theexhaustion and the pain. After they got to the hallway, Dex chuckled. "Helooks half-dead, that Keets, but I wager he'll be up and about in no time. Now come this way. I've beencooking up my special relish, and I can still dish up some sliders."

Trever pushed away his third helping. Dex hadinsisted that they not discuss what was happening while they ate, and although it had been hard for allof them, they'd managed to eat something withouttheir stomachs churning. Trever was still worriedabout Ferus, furious and scared, but at least he'dmanaged to eat. Dex had regaled them with storiesduring their meal, stories about the street they wereliving on. It was called Thugger's Alley, using sub-level Coruscant slang for lowlifes and thieves.Nobody on the outside was quite sure who livedthere; mostly they kept their distance.

Dex, however, knew who lived here. Some low-lifes, surely, he said with a chuckle, but more of those like the Erased, those who despised what the Emperor represented and declined to live under his rules. So they set up elaborate security and so farthe Empire had left them alone.

"Of course we can't fight them," Dex said. "Butwe'll see them corning."

"I wish I could say the same," Solace said.

"Now, enough of that," Dex said kindly. "No look-ing back, isn't that the Jedi way?"

"Something like that," she replied. Her gaze wasremote.

"Hrrun . what's next to do, then? You don'tknow where they took Ferus?"

"Just that he was arrested." Trever felt his stom-ach lurch. He shouldn't have eaten all those sliders after all. They felt sour in his stomach now.

One of Dex's four hands came down on his shoul-der with surprising gentleness. "There isn't a placein the galaxy we can't find him, so don't youworry."

"That's right," Solace said. "We'll start with likelyprisons and move out from there. We'll need trans

-ports; I don't have a hyperdrive on my ship."

"Transports we can get for you," Dex said.

"That's a random plan," Trever pointed out. "Bythe time you find him, he could be executed a dozen times. What we need is information."

Solace looked at him, startled. She wasn't usedto being questioned, he guessed. But if a plan was stupid, somebody had to say so, in his opinion.

"Do you have a better idea?" she asked, lookingdown her nose at him. Trever felt his irritation flare. "Just give me aminute — it won't be hard."

"Now hold on here," Dex said. "Solace, with duerespect, Trever is right. If you go from prison to prison, it could take years. The Empire has moreprisons than banthas have ticks. What we need is infiltration."

Trever noticed that Curran and Keets had qui-etly entered the room. Curran looked stronger, his glossy hair now smoothed and pulled back into thethick metal ring. His small, furred face was alert.Keets had a bacta bandage on his side and winced ashe sat down in a chair.

"It's time for exposure," Dex said.

He looked at Oryon, Keets, and Curran. "We'velost good friends on this day," he continued. "The other Erased have gone underground again. I have asweet spot here, and you're welcome to share it. It'd be safe, I guarantee that, at least until the Empirefeels like looking for us. Then we'll find another.But . . ." Dex paused. "It's time to join the fight, myfriends. To fight means you have to risk exposure.We need to resurface."

Curran nodded. "I was thinking the same thing.""I've still got my contacts in the Senate,"Keets said.

"And there are a few even in the Imperial Armyofficer corps who don't like where they are," Oryon added. "They might talk."

"I've got friends I can ask, too," Dex said. "If wedo this, we could attract the notice of the Inquisitors.They'll come looking, no doubt about that."

The others nodded. They would accept that risk.

"But why?" Trever asked them. "You hardlyknow Ferus. You just met him a few days ago."

"Doesn't matter," Dex said. "We're all soldiers inthe same fight now. We'll risk what we have to for our own."

Trever looked at Dex gratefully. He knew Feruswould be touched by their help. He only hoped Ferus would live long enough to see it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

That night, Ferus's cell door slid open and theguards threw a body inside. Ferus sat up, leaning onhis elbows. The door slid shut and Clive unfoldedhimself from his tucked position. He dusted off hisdirty prison coveralls.

"I don't know why they have to do that," he said.

"How'd you manage it?" Ferus whispered.

"There's a creepy logic to this regime," Cliveanswered in a low tone, settling himself next toFerus. It had been at least two years since Ferushad last seen him. He was thinner, and his thickblack hair was cut close to his head. His blue eyeshad dark smudges underneath them. Then again,they all looked older.

"When you rule by fear, everyone is afraid ofyou," Clive said, lying back and crossing one ankleover his knee. "This can have its advantages.

Obviously. I mean, they're in control of the galaxy,right? But it can offer windows of opportunity for fellows like me. Hence. There's a chap in the data-works section — not an Imperial guy, just a civilian with a job. He had a slight problem with his pro-gram, and I saw him sweat. If you mess up on the job here, you get a boot in the face and a transfer tosomeplace worse. Does that concept boggle themind or what? So I fixed it for him on the sly. Heowed me a favor. This is it."

"So what are you in for?" Ferus asked.

Clive stretched out his legs. "I was lying lowunder one of your excellent false identities — thanksfor never charging me, by the way — when I saw anopportunity I couldn't pass up."

"Don't tell me. A little espionage? A tiny theft ofan industrial secret?" Clive grinned. "Something along those lines. Thenext thing I knew, I was being arrested. They threw me against a wall and put stun cuffs on me. Theytraced my ID does and somehow in a burst of theirusual efficiency they discovered who I was. Thatwas act three of this space opera, mate. Once theyhad my real name, they had me. Into the simmer Iwent. The End."

But it wasn't the end. Ferus knew enough aboutClive to know that. He'd met Flax in the time before the Clone Wars, when he was still operating his busi-ness, Olin/Lands. He and his partner Roan offered their services to whistleblowers, beings who exposedcorruption and then found the law did not protect them. Roan and Ferus created new identities for thewhistleblowers and their families and also offered protection while they established themselves onnew worlds. Clive hadn't needed their protection—he had honed his own style of defense, with amazingskills Ferus had never seen outside of the Temple. Using his abilities as a musician, he had oftengone unnoticed in bars or parties while he was gathering information or stealing it. It was a living, hewould say with a shrug. Once the Clone Wars started,he saw his skills as marketable. Ferus had thoughtof him immediately after he had been put in charge ofan operation on the planet of Jabor. He had recruitedClive and sent him undercover to a Separatist baseto work as a double agent. As a result, Ferus hadbeen able to bust a Separatist spy ring that had oper-ated throughout the Mid-Rim. It hadn't won the war,but it had saved lives. If there was anybody in the galaxy who he'd wantto watch his back — with the exception of Roan orObi-Wan — it was Clive Flax.

"So what's the plan?" Ferus asked.

"What plan?"

"The escape plan. I know you have one."

"You're right," Clive admitted easily. "I just needan accomplice. The galaxy smiled on me the day I saw your ugly mug in here. That's why I kept youalive."

"You mean you only saved my life so you coulduse me?"

"Of course, mate. You know I only think aboutmy own sweet self." Clive grinned at him.

"Tell me the plan," Ferus said. "I don't care whatit is — I'm in."

"I've been stealing things for months," Clive said.He reached inside his coveralls and laid out several items on the hard floor.

Ferus looked at them dubiously.

A servodriver.

A spoon.

A droid's restraining bolt.

A handful of durasteel bits.

"This is what you're going to break out ofprison with?" Clive picked up one of the tiny bits. "You seethis? You put a small object in a piece of equipmentin the right way, you can disable it. Disable some-thing, you've got a distraction. Sometimes that's allyou need." He replaced the scrap of metal withsomething like fondness. "Besides, I had a plastoiddatacard, too, but I had to use it to save your sorryneck. The transport ship comes tomorrow for thenew load. Are you in or out?"

Ferus gave another glance at the motley groupof objects. Sure, they didn't look like much. ButClive had just saved his life with a datacard.

"I'm in," he said.

CHAPTER NINE

Malorum sat in the cockpit of his private starshipon one of the landing platforms of Polis Massa. There were too many unrelated facts in his brain.He was used to cataloging facts and swiftly reachingconclusions — that's how smart he was — but nowhe felt only confusion. He hated confusion. Think,he told himself impatiently.

He suspected that Senator Amidala had beentreated here, but he could not locate any evidenceof it. One of his best agents, Sancor, had been killedhere. According to the operational head of the medcenter, Maneeli Tuun, Sancor had "accidentally"fallen off an observation platform and landed onsome lethally sharp surgical instruments.

Accident.Did they take him for a fool?

A source had told him that a Jedi had been theone to take Amidala's body to Naboo. Of coursethe galaxy believed the Jedi had killed Amidala, butMalorum knew it was a lie fabricated to slur theJedi. He didn't care about that. He cared only aboutwhat really happened, because it was informationDarth Vader did not have. And any information Vaderdidn't have could be used against him. The funeral . . .

Malorum tapped his fingers against the cockpitinstrument panel. The funeral had been organizedin haste. For such a ceremonial people, it was per-haps too hasty.

He leaned over to the nav computer. He set acourse for Naboo. His work here was finished. He'd found nothing.

Instinct was telling him that his answers laythere, not with Ferus Olin. He would call in the ex-ecution order. The galaxy would have one less Jedisympathizer in it.

That could only be an improvement.

CHAPTER TEN

Trever walked down a warehouse aisle, inbetween blocks of towering garbage. The smell was overpowering. He could see fat white gaberwormsas long as his arm slithering through the waste. Workers of many species toiled without stop-ping, shoveling the garbage into a machine thatcubed arid sanitized it. They wore face masks andgloves, but Trever couldn't imagine that thosehelped with the smell or the feel of the garbage.

"Told you you'd regret tagging along," Keetstold him.

"It's not so bad," Trever said. "You should haveseen my brother's bedroom." The joke slipped out before he could stop it.Keets gave him a quick, sharp look. He hadn't mentioned his family before. He never mentioned hisfamily. Their lives, their deaths, were his business. He hated to think about them. He tried not to. Itwas tough coming from a family of heroes and martyrs. His mother, his father, and his brother had allfought the Empire. They had all been killed. He hadno intention of ending as they did, if he could help it.

He sensed the itch in Keets to ask another ques-tion — he was a journalist, after all — but Keets saidnothing, just kept leading the way down the aisleof the facility toward the friend he called Davis Joness.

Keets had filled Trever in on the background as they took an airbus fifty levels clown to the facility. Davis Joness had been an influential and powerfulCoruscant administrator. He had remained neutral during the Clone Wars but could not conceal his dis-taste for the Empire's new regulations. One day, he ran afoul of the new Imperial leadership and wasinstantly reassigned to garbage duty. They found him at the end of the line, using aservoshovel to pick up the hunks of garbage thathad fallen from the piles. He wore a bright orangebandanna around his head and boots up to his thighs.His eyebrows shot up over his face mask when hecaught sight of Keets.

"Come to give me a hand?" he asked.

"I think I'll pass."

"You disappeared."

"Thought it might be a good idea at the time."

"Why'd you come back?"

"Usual story. I missed all this."

Keets lifted hisarms to take in the towers of garbage.

"Come on — we can't talk here, there are spieseverywhere." Davis stripped off his gloves and tossedthem onto a pile of reeking garbage.

They followed him through a green door to anoutside courtyard. Trever took a deep breath of fresher air, trying not to be obvious about it.Unfortunately, Davis smelled almost as had as thegarbage he handled. There was no fresh air to behad in his vicinity.

Davis noticed when Trever moved away slightly."Occupational hazard," he said. With a sigh, he sat down on an upended cone of permacrete that servedas a stool. "Glad to see a face from the old days, any-way," he said.

"You gave me some great tips in the past," Meetssaid. "Are you still hooked in?"

"Sure, I still keep my fingers on the pulse ofSenatorial high jinks," Davis said with a half-smile. "Ijust can't help myself. It's a blast watching theSenators debate about how many meters widethe Coruscant flag should be while the Emperorplans more death and destruction."

"So tell me: Where do they send the politicalprisoners? The worst of the worst?"

"Don't you mean the best of the best?"

Keets inclined his head, conceding the point.

"I've heard about a new prison world. Dontamo.A work prison. The most elite prisoners are sent there. If you know someone who ends up within itswalls, forget them. Everybody works and every-body dies."

Trever clasped his hands behind his back andsqueezed, trying to distract himself from believing it.

"It's not safe here," Davis told Meets, suddenlylooking around. "You'd better go. There are at least three workers here who pass along information. Thoseare the ones I know about. Your image was taken asyou entered; they'll put it through security if one ofthe workers tips them off, which they will."

"I'm already on Malorum's bad side," Keets said."I doubt it can get worse."

"Well, you're in luck. He's on Naboo for the moment,or so I hear. But you'd better get lost anyway."

Keets turned to go. Then he turned back again."Why do you stay?"

"I've been barred from every profession exceptthis one. I've got kids." He balled his fingers into fists and stared at them, his eyes bloodshot, his face mot-tled red from exposure to garbage toxins. "Whatelse can I do?"

When Trever and Keets returned, Oryon andCurran were talking to Dex. Solace was studying a holographic star chart.

"We worked a contact in the air control," Oryonsaid. "A starship left the landing platform of a Coruscant high-security prison yesterday. It washeaded for the Radiant One system."

"We've been reading the star charts," Dex said."We can narrow it down to about fifteen prisons. Radiant One is a big system, well beyond the Core."

"We're trying out probability theories, trying torank them in importance so we know where to start," Curran added.

Trever looked at Keets. They'd already lookedup Dontamo on the star charts. It was in Radiant One. This was the confirmation they needed.

"You don't need to look any longer," Keets toldthe others. "We know where he is." He strode over to the star chart and pointed his finger. "Here."

"There's something else you should know," Dexsaid reluctantly. "An execution order has gone through for Ferus."

Silence suddenly filled the room. Trever closedhis eyes as he felt them burn.Not again. Not again. Not again.

Not someone he cared about dying at the handsof the Empire.

"No," he said fiercely, surprised he'd spokenaloud. "We'll get there in time."

"I can make it in half a day," Solace said.

"We're coming with you," Oryon and Curran saidat the same time. Solace looked at them, surprised.

"We're seeing this through," Keets said.

"It's like Dex told us," Oryon said. "It's time tojoin thefight."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The plan was simple. The hard part was doing it.

Ferus lay awake in the darkness, reviewing whatClive had outlined while Clive himself slept in a corner snoring loudly. Once they were at the factory, Clive would dis-able a loading machine that transported the huge durasteel cartons onto the transport ship. He simplyplanned to disable the counting system. The factthat he swore he would be able to do this with aspoon was enough to give Ferus nightmares, so hechose not to dwell on that.

"Inventory," Clive had said, explaining his plan. "If you mess up their inventory procedures, they go crazy. They know they're accountable to someGrand Moffing Toffhead down the line, so it has tobe spot-on. So the crates are being loaded, butthey're not being counted. That means they're goingto have to do a manual count. Which means they'llflip open the bay doors on the transport. And thatwill give us our chance. After you take care of themain guard and grab his weapon —"

"How am I going to do that?"

"You'll think of something. The other guards willbe checking out the machine and watching the prisoners, because when something goes wrong, they'reafraid everyone will riot."

"So I take out the guard . . ."

"By that time I'll be in position to stop the loadercompletely. Then you and I get on board using the bay doors, get to the cockpit, throw out the pilots,and take off."

"There seem to be a number of holes in this plan.""Well, nothing's perfect." Ferus thought back on the conversation now ashe lay on his back. He trusted Clive, he trusted his instincts — and he also trusted that if he didn't takethis opportunity, he'd be dead. He closed his eyes but didn't sleep. It was beforedawn when he heard the boots outside. Too early toroust the prisoners for the day.

He could see the gleam in Clive's eyes. He waswide-awake, listening. "This can't be good," Clive whispered.

The boots stopped outside the door. Clive movedfast. He threw himself across the cell and punched Ferus just as the door flew open and the lights werepowered up suddenly in an attempt to blind them.

"He stole my boots!" Clive shouted wildly.

"Doesn't matter now," the guard smirked.

Ferus was picked up and thrown into a transportcart, a small, locking box they used to move prison-ers in and out . . . to the execution bloc.

It was his time.

The cover closed and locked. Within seconds,they were wheeling Ferus out. He clutched a restraining bolt in his fingers — thebolt that Clive had passed him when he'd pretendedto attack him. He had no idea what to do with it. Itwas hardly a weapon. But it was something.

Ferus was thrown into a cell. His execution orderwas read out loud to him. "By the order of . . ."

"Crimes against the Imperial regime . . ." It didn'tmatter. The door locked behind the guards. It was a tinycell with thick durasteel walls. There was no room to lie down and barely room to sit. There was nowindow, no chair. Nothing here but time, and verylittle of that.

He grasped the bolt in his fist. He couldn't breakout of here with a bolt. Clive knew that. But when they came for him, when they took him to the exe-cution room, then maybe he could use it. You put a small object in a piece of equip-ment in the right way, you can disable it. Disablesomething, you've got a distraction. Sometimes that's all you need.

All in all, he'd rather have a lightsaber.

Already he heard them coming. They didn't letyou sit for long. He still had the Force. It was here, even on thisstinking, dismal planet, even in this dark cage of a room. It was inside him and around him and he couldaccess it whenever he chose. He stood.

Today he would either die or escape.

It would be his choice. Not theirs.

The door slid open. There were six stormtroop-ers. One was an officer, consulting a datapad attached to his wrist.

"Ferus Olin, criminal from the planet Bellassa.Retinal scan." He held up a scanner to Ferus's eye.

"Identification confirmed."

They pushed him into another room, a largerone, with several chairs with restraints that werebolted to the ceiling and trailed down like lethalvines. There was a med droid in the corner. So itwould be lethal injection.

They pushed him past the droid. He palmed the restraining bolt as he passed. He hoped the guards would keep shoving him, and they did, poking himwith their blaster rifles. He pretended to stumbleand reached out with an arm to steady himself. Hegrabbed on to the med droid.

"Off!" The stormtrooper slammed the butt of therifle into his shoulder. The pain radiated down Ferus's arm. It didn'tmatter. He'd been able to slip the bolt into the droid's socket.

They brought him toward the chair, thenslammed him down into it.

"Prepare injection," the officer said.

The droid didn't move.

"Prepare injection!" the officer snapped.

"Restrained," the droid answered succinctly.

"What?"

The officer turned. It was the moment Ferus hadbeen waiting for. With one kick he sent one stormtrooper into another; an elbow sent a third spinning.The Force hummed around him as he leaped overthe pile, snatching up two blasters on the way. Hetwisted in midair, held himself motionless for oneinstant to blast the droid to smithereens, thenlanded. He dived away from blaster fire and usedthe momentum to roll himself like a ball, takingdown the rest of the stormtroopers. On his way up he grabbed a security card out of a stormtrooper'sutility belt.

The officer faced him, his blaster held steady.

Ferus held his blasters. Neither of them moved.

The officer fired. Ferus had already taken advan-tage of the instant before the blast and leaped. He fired above at the ceiling. The bolts holding therestraints in place fell. The restraining cablesdropped to the floor. He wrapped the officer in themand fled.

Since he'd been in the restraint box, he wasn'tsure where he was in the prison complex. He would have to find the factory. He wasn't sure if Clive hadbeen able to disable the loader but he had to assume that the plan was on schedule. Clive would expecthim to show up. If he didn't, he had no doubt thatClive would leave without him . . . if he could.

Ferus ran through the halls. There had to beanother entrance to the factory, one for the guardsto use. He found it. The blast doors opened with a swipeof the card. The racket of the factory assaultedhis ears.

Glad to kiss this place good-bye.

He ducked behind a machine. The line of prison-ers kept their faces toward their work. A guard patrolled — up and down, up and down. Ferus couldsee no disruption in routine. In the distance, the transport freighter sat, while a conveyor ramp rolledcrate after crate inside. Then he heard the crackle of a transmitter andsaw an officer walking quickly down the aisle, toward the freighter. Another officer was hurrying from the opposite direction. Ferus was covered by the noise of the machinesand the regular routine of the patrolling guard. While the guard's back was to him, he rushed forward andtook down the first officer. The officer cracked his head on machinery and was out cold.

Keeping his head down, Ferus ran past theclamor of the turbines stamping durasteel intosheets and forming them into gears and pins. Hegrabbed a handful of gears as he ran. By now the prisoners had noted him but theysaid nothing. If one of them was going to break out,he would make it or not make it. They would neitherhelp him nor hinder him. But he could feel their avid interest in his progress and their conviction that hewould fail.

The bay doors were open now, and the secondofficer was striding up the ramp, ready to do the manual count. No doubt he expected his fellowofficer at any moment. They had a window of timeto do this. Once he was unable to raise the officer onhis comlink, the officer would become suspicious.

"About time you showed up." Clive was besidehim now.

"Blasters." Ferus said the word not as a need buta warning.

"Wha —"

Ferus had felt the surge in the Force, warninghim. He shoved Clive down as the blaster fireexploded overhead. It hit a stamping machine, send-ing molten fire through it.

"We've been spotted," Ferus said.

"You think?"

They raced up the ramp, zigzagging to avoid thefire from the guards behind them. Stormtroopers appeared and thundered up the ramp. Clive used anold trick, tossing the handful of gears down theramp. The stormtroopers slipped and fell. With aForce-push, Ferus gave them an extra boost, send-ing them flying back onto the factory floor.

Clive gave him a surprised look but there was notime for questions. Clive hurled the spoon, end over end over end, toward the sole Imperial officer. It hithim straight in the center of the forehead with such force that the officer's eyes rolled back in his headand he collapsed in a heap. Ferus quickly closed the bay doors.

"Cockpit," Clive said. "They'll be coming after uswith the big guns now."

"Those weren't the big guns?"

They raced to the cockpit and barreled throughthe door. Two freighter pilots stood up from where they'd been lounging with one eye on the navcomputer panel. They saw the blaster in Ferus'shand and the determined look in Clive's eyes.

They held up their hands. "I didn't sign on forthis," one said.

"Me either," said the other.

"The door's that way," Clive said. He hit thecockpit ramp button with his fist. They catapulted themselves out, jumping off theramp before it hit the floor. Clive hit the ramp control again as Ferus fired up the engines. The freighter ship shot into the sky. The prisonbecame a gray blur in the middle of a jungle. And then the first starfighters began to rise fromthe landing platform below.

"Do they have to be so stinking fast?" Clivemuttered.

"What's the status on our weapons system?"Ferus asked, pushing the speed. Clive reviewed the computer readouts. "Uh, notgreat. We've got a couple of low-power laser cannons."

"And?"

"That's it."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Ferus gave a quick glance at the nav computer.The Imperial starfighters were gaining. The freighter was old and slow. Its weapons were rudimentary.They could play hide-and-seek, but there were no asteroids in the vicinity, and anyway it would be likehiding a Wookiee behind a twig.

"We didn't come this far to be turned into spacedust," Clive said fiercely. But they both looked out at the ships and knewthey were doomed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Trever and the others had kept in touch atfirst, but as the planet Dontamo drew closer theymaintained comm silence. Even if they scrambledcommunications, they didn't want Imperial scoutsto pick up anything.

Dex had pulled in a major favor and outfittedthem with two small starships. They had seen servicein the Clone Wars and their hulls were battered andpockmarked with the ghosts of small asteroid colli-sions and missile fire. But the engines were tweakedand their hyperdrives had been overhauled. Trever, Keets, and Solace were in one modifiedARC-170 starfighter, Oryon and Curran in an overhauled Jedi starfighter. Their plan was not muchof a plan, in Trever's opinion, but they didn't havea choice. They simply had to land and see whatthey found. There was no time to obtain the prisonspecs, no time for surveillance. If an execution orderhad been issued, the small group of combatants hadto move as fast as they could and take theirchances.

Trever kept his eyes on the nav computer. Hewas alert for any signs of Imperial patrol ships.Oryon had told him that they often did routineinspections of the airspace surrounding the prisonworlds. Every nerve inside him was screaming toland and find Ferus.

Suddenly he sat forward. "Something's going on.Look." He pointed to the dots on the computer. "A ship is being chased."

"A freighter, by the looks of it." Solace keyed ina few strokes. "And those are starfighters."

"Imperial starfighters chasing anoldfreighter? Why?"

"Not our problem. Could be good news for us,"Solace said. "They'll be distracted by whatever's going on, and we can —"

She stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" Solace's face had suddenly gonestill and tight, a look Trever was becoming famil-iar with.

"The Force. Something . . ." She stared hard atthe screen. "Ferus is on that ship." She reached forthe comm unit. "Oryon, come in. The ship on XYZcoordinates 1138, 1999, 2300 —"

"We see it."

"Our target is on that ship. And at the controls, by the looks of it."

"Looks like he could use a hand. Let's go."

Trever was suddenly slammed back in his seat asSolace took the fighter into a spinning dive.

"Did I warn you to hang on?" she yelled over thescream of the engines. Trever felt plastered back against the seat. Hehad seen Solace's piloting skills, navigating throughthe tight spaces and close shaves that was Coruscantair traffic. This was combat flying — fast, danger-ous. It might have even felt exhilarating, if he hadn'talso felt like he was about to die any second.

"You're going to have to operate the laser can-nons," Solace told him. "Can you do it?"

"I'm pretty good," Trever said, even though tech-nically he hadn't operated any before.

"Get to it," she said. "Just don't shoot Oryon." Trever switched on the cannons. He spread hislegs, keeping his balance, his eye at the scope. The Imperial fighters were firing on the starfreighter.Compared to the agile fighters, the freighter lookedlike a gigantic clumsy tractor plowing through stars.

The starfighters hadn't realized the two new-comers were a threat, not yet. They might get a few clear shots first.

Trever lined up a shot. Almost within range.Almost . . . almost. . . . He pressed the activator - and was rewarded with the bloom of smokefrom one of the starfighters.

"Good work!" Solace shouted. "Let me get closer.They'll be on us now." Trever quickly discovered that shooting at astarfighter was much more difficult when the star-fighters were engaged in evasive maneuvers . . . andshooting back at him.

Space suddenly erupted in fire. It had bumpsand peaks and valleys, currents of percussive bumps that Solace rode with ease, one hand on the con-trols, the other on her own weaponry controls. Oryon was looping around the starfighters, pep-pering them with fire and trying to stay betweenthem and the freighter. Suddenly Ferus's voicepopped into their frequency.

"Whoever you are, thank you!" he yelled.

"It's us, sweetcake. Watching your back as usual,"Keets's voice boomed out.

"It's good to see you! I owe you one."

"You owe us plenty!" Trever shouted from thegunport. Oryon's constant blaster hammering hit onestarfighter, which spiraled out of control. Now onlytwo were left, and Solace and Oryon proved to bethe better pilots, maneuvering their ships so thatthey boxed the starfighters in, then blasted them.

Fire burst on their wings and fuselage and theycareened down toward the prison world. Ferus's freighter did a lazy circle around them."How about a rendezvous point?" Solace clicked through the possibilities. "Howabout Alba-16? It's not far, and the Empire has noreal presence there."

"And it's got a great cantina!" an unfamiliar voiceroared through the Comm unit.

"Who was that?" Oryon asked.

Trever felt his heart rise as he heard Ferus'schuckle. It was good to hear it. He couldn't help feel-ing that everything would be okay.

"Don't ask," Ferus said.

It wasn't until Alba-16 was close that Clivebrought up to Ferus what he'd seen. He was sittingin the copilot's chair, boots on the console, leaningback as far as the chair would allow him to go.

"I always thought there was something odd aboutyou, but I never guessed you were a Jedi," he said.

"I was never a Jedi," Ferus corrected. "I left whenI was still a Padawan."

"Never heard of one leaving. A story there, eh?"Clive said, but he didn't ask for it. "You could have told me. I would have felt a mite easier about ourescape probability factor. As it was, I thought forsure we were going to die."

"My abilities aren't as sharp as they were. And Ihad no lightsaber. I didn't want you to overestimate what I could do."

"Well, it was a nice surprise, mate. You did allright."

"You didn't have to punch me."

"Authenticity, Master Ferus. That's the key toevery escape." Ferus landed the ship at the Alba-16 spaceport.It held the usual collection of freighters and haulersas well as a few personal craft. Because the planetwas without an Imperial garrison, no one questionedthe arrival of the ships.

Behind him, the two starfight-ers landed. Solace popped the canopy on hers and amoment later Trever stuck his head out. He jumpedout on the wing and leaped to the ground, then rantoward Ferus. Suddenly he stopped, embarrassed.Ferus saw his hands dangling. He knew that Treverwanted to show his feelings, but didn't want toexpose them. The boy was such a curious mixture ofemotion and toughness.

Ferus had once been a stiff person, too, but notanymore. He slung one arm around Trever's shoulders and gave him a quick, fierce hug. "Thought youlost me, didn't you?"

"You do have a way of cutting things close,"Trever said. The rest of the group walked up.

"Do me a favor," Keets said to Ferus. "Try not to get arrested again."

"Who's he?" Solace asked, indicating Clive.

"The answer to your dreams, precious," Clivesaid, linking an arm through hers. "Let me buy youa grog."

In a flash, Solace slipped out of his grasp, twistedone of his arms behind his back, and had her light-saber hilt nudged up against his chin.

"Did I mention Solace was a Jedi, too?" Ferusasked.

Solace released Clive, who smiled at her discom-fort, and they all headed into the noisy cantina located near the spaceport. The music and conver-sation would cover their words. Clive rubbed his hands together as he surveyedthe mangy dive. "This is just about the most beauti-ful sight I've ever seen."

They ordered drinks and food, and Clive ate rav-enously while Ferus filled the group in on what had happened to him. They told him about the attack onSolace and her followers. Ferus was grieved to discover that the Empire had acted so quickly and thatthe other Erased had been killed.

"The good news is that we all reactivated our infor-mation networks," Oryon said. "We were able to findout where the Imperial thugs were holding you."

"We're not ready for a real resistancemovement — not yet," Keets said. "But we can seea day where we could link up with other planets."

Ferus saw it, too. It was years away, he knew.But someday the pockets of resistance on eachplanet would communicate with each other andform a network. Maybe even an army. It all had tostart somewhere.

Ferus nodded. "We just have to begin. AndCoruscant is the perfect place to start. The Senatehas always been full of informers, people eager for abribe. Just because the Emperor has taken overdoesn't. mean it isn't still true."

"Yeah, we also heard Malorum is on Naboo onsome top-secret mission he concocted for himself," Keets said. "So you don't have to worry about himfor a while." Naboo.A warning bell went off in Ferus'smind. Why?

Because Obi-Wan told me to be alert toanyinvestigations into the death of Senator Amidala of Naboo. Her funeral had been held there, in the city of Theed. He tried to dismiss the importance of Malorum'svisit. There could be any number of reasons for him to go to Naboo. But he could not forget that Obi-Wanhad told him that Malorum could threaten the futureof the galaxy if he was allowed to continue his inves-tigations. For a moment, he felt a spurt of annoyance atObi-Wan. The Jedi Master was sitting in exile, giving Ferus a vague order to watch out for somethingwithout telling him what was at risk. Ferus wouldhave preferred a clear-cut mission.

Yet he couldn't ignore this.

He looked around at the table. He would goalone, of course. But he had the feeling that thisunusual collection of fighters wouldn't let him. Hewasn't sure how it had happened or why, but theyshared a bond. Even Clive.

"I have to go to Naboo," Ferus said.

Keets put down the pitcher of grog he was aboutto pour. "Just when I was starting to relax," he moaned.

"I'm not asking you to come," Ferus said truth-fully. "But I have to go." He felt the weight of the moment as they consid-ered his words. Clive slammed down his heaping forkful of food."This place has really gone downhill," he said."Let's go."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Naboo was a lovely world. Theed was renownedacross the galaxy for its natural marvels. The water

-falls kept the air in a state of constant, exhilaratingfreshness. Flowers and vines twined on every gracious building. The people of Naboo were known fortheir warmth and cordiality, their love of peace. There was an art to living, they felt, and their food,their buildings, and their clothes indicated this. Itwas a beautiful, ornate world, and Malorum wantedto blast it into space dust. Everywhere he turned, he was met with smilesand bows. When he asked questions, he was metwith earnest desires to help him, thoughtful frowns,fingers clicking on data keys, careful reviewing ofrecords. But no answers. "Alas and sadly . ." the func-tionary would say with a helpless shrug. It was infuriating. No one defied him, no onerefused him, but no one gave him what he wanted.As soon as he thought he had grasped something asfirm as carbonite, he found he was holding only air.And there was no way he could threaten them, forthey seemed to cooperate fully. Why did he get the feeling that behind his backthey were delighted to thwart him? He could see why the Emperor decided to sendan Imperial battalion here despite the objections of Queen Apailana. They hadn't interfered in the planet'sgovernance, but their presence was a necessary reminder of who was actually in charge. They hadcompletely taken over one of the gracious domed government buildings in Theed, right next to thevast hangar. It was a smart choice. They could mon-itor all official comings and goings, and also use thehangar to store explosive devices should the peoplerebel. Strictly against Senate rules, of course, butwho would ever know?

Malorum thought that the citizens of Theedwould have learned something from the TradeFederation blockade years ago. They'd discoveredjust how vulnerable they were. The fact that theyhad won that particular skirmish had been mereluck. If the Emperor had been in control they wouldhave been cowed and defeated.

Naboo was completely reliant on the rest of thegalaxy for its industrial materials. They had no factories to speak of. If Malorum had been in charge,Naboo would have attacked surrounding worlds thatwere rich in minerals and industry. But no — theyjust kept on making their clay pots and their paintings and their clothes and stupidly left themselvesvulnerable. Malorum walked by the Imperial garrison, hop-ing the sight of it would give him fresh energy. Hehad visited the place where Senator Amidala's bodywas prepared for burial. He received no new information . . . except a crash course he didn't need inthe funeral rites of the Naboo. Apparently the grandmothers were designated as the ones who dressedthe body and prepared it for the "last journey." The fact of Padme's death was recorded . . . butthat was all. There was no hint of how she'd died, nothing for him to go on. Naboo customs precludedany questions about the possible father of her child; the family was given privacy. There was no doctor'sreport.

Malorum's steps slowed. How stupid. Of course, ifthe records did not show him what he wanted, he mustgo to the source. Padme Amidala's grandmothers.

One problem was that the Naboo did not have aworld directory. Citizens did not have to register with the government, something he knew that theEmperor would change as soon as he got around toit. Privacy was prized here. In addition, everybodyseemed to know everybody else, through a networkof clans and families. If you had to ask for an address,it was proof that you didn't know the person well enough to contact them.

A small problem. Not an insurmountable one.

Malorum crossed to the building that housed theNaboo Essentials Provider, a typically gentle name for the office that controlled the power grid. Hepaused just inside the door to examine a large holo-map on the wall, a graphic image of the main powergenerator. He noted the corridors lined with elec-tron gates, the catwalks, the bridges to dozens oflevels, the deep central core. Impressive. The Naboodid have some technical expertise after all. Thiswould be an excellent world to exploit. He strode into the main office and demanded tosee the manager. In the usual display of polite evasion he was told that the office was about to close,but if he'd come back tomorrow.. .

"I am a personal representative of EmperorPalpatine. Get him for me now," Malorum snapped.He couldn't wait to squeeze the information out ofthese maddening people like pulp from a muja fruit. The clerk rushed into an inner office, ornaterobes flowing. Malorum had been waiting, hopingfor this. He strode after him. He pushed through thedoor, almost knocking the man to the floor. The manager stood up from his desk, his mouthgaping. He was older, his graying hair standing outin tufts over his ears. He had a kind face and gentleeyes. Malorum despised him immediately.

"I am looking for the addresses of the grand-mothers of the former Senator Padme Amidala."

"Senator Amidala, alas and sadly, is deceased."

"I am of course aware of that." Malorum slammedhis hand down. "Thisdeskis aware of that! I am the eyes and ears of the Emperor himself. Tell me thenames of her grandmothers. I know you know them so don't waste my time with denials."

The man swallowed. He quickly consulted a hand-crafted ledger. "Winama Naberrie. Ryoo Thule."

"Give me their addresses."

"Winama Naberrie, alas and sadly, died beforethe Battle of Naboo."

"Then the other one!" Malorum roared at theman. He didn't like to lose his temper — he felt a lossof control was always a mistake, but he'd been pro-voked by hours of evasions. And it could be effective. To his surprise, the man stood his ground. "Ah,well, I don't have that information per se, you see. This is the office of the Essentials Provider —"

Malorum had had enough of this. Always it wasthe same. The person would tell him he really didn't have the ability to help him while maintaining anexpression of deep concern, then repeat his title orthe name of the agency, and Malorum would be ledround and round in a helpful, polite way that gothim nowhere.

He put his blaster next to the man's cheek. "Doyou see this?" No more yelling now. Just a quietvoice that held menace.

The man's expression turned to fear. "Yes."

Slowly he rotated the blaster until the barrel waspointing toward the outer office. "I am going to take this blaster and shoot everyone in this office in frontof your eyes if you don't give me the information." The man looked up at him. Incredulity turned tohorror as he realized that Malorum was perfectly capable of doing it.

He bowed his head. "Ryoo Thule now lives in thelake district of Naboo in the family villa called Varykino. In Translucence Cove."

"That isn't much of an address." Malorum gavethe blaster an extra push against his cheek. The man raised his head. Something flashedthere, some defiance that Malorum decided he didn't have time to smash. Naboo would come to under-stand, as all worlds would, who was in charge.

"That is the way we do things on Naboo. It is theonly direction I can give you." Malorum wanted to shoot him, but he stormedout instead.

He had what he needed. It was tedious to haveto do his own investigating, but he couldn't trust anyone else. He had to dig and dig until he had whathe wanted. He knew the lake district was remote; he'd need local transport. All to see an old womanwho might hold the key to something he still didn't understand.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Solace and the others landed their ships on anentry platform on the outskirts of Theed. They knew the Imperials were monitoring the hangar. Clive wasfamiliar with Theed and led them through thestreets.

"The people of Naboo are no fans of the Empire,"Clive told them. "They'll keep their mouths shut. Just follow me. I know Theed well."

"I don't need a tour of cantinas," Ferus told himsuspiciously. Clive laughed. "I can show you those, too, mate.But let's start with some contacts. I know a former captain in the army who can help us — GregarTypho."

"I know him," Keets said. "I interviewed him acouple of times. Senator Amidala trusted him."

"Lead on," Ferus said.

Captain Typho was in an office off one of thewide boulevards of Theed. He rose from his desk abit awkwardly, in the way of an active man who wasunused to office work. He had a small eye patch over one eye and was wearing a uniform over his power-ful build. He remembered Keets well and greeted Clive warmly.

"I heard you were in prison," he said.

"I wasn't crazy about the accommodations. Thisis my friend, Ferus Olin. We're all here to help locatean Inquisitor named Malorum."

Captain Typho nodded. "We know he's here.We've been tracking his movements. He began atthe Imperial battalion offices — we know they'resetting up a spy network here. We're keeping themunder surveillance even as they spy on us. They'vetaken over a government building next to the han-gar. Despite the laws of Naboo, which forbid it, wesuspect they are secretly stocking weapons andexplosives there."

Curran Caladian frowned. "That's against thelaws of the Senate as well. Do you think they're plan

-ning to take over the government?"

Typho nodded grimly. "It's possible. They haveassault ships in orbit. They've done this with equally uncooperative worlds, under the guise of 'keepingorder in the galaxy."

"I'm well aware of their tactics," Ferus said."They did it on Belassa, where I come from."

"I've heard about that," Typho said. "It's what wefear. That's why we've been keeping a watchful eyeon Malorum. We know how close he is to EmperorPalpatine. The curious thing is that he doesn't seemto be on official business. He checked in with theImperial regent, of course, but after that, he's been on his own, keeping a low profile."

"So what has he been up to?" Keets asked.

"We've been receiving reports from governmentofficials that he's been investigating the funeral of Senator Amidala."

His face darkened. "I too have investigated theSenator's death. I don't believe the official reportsthat the Jedi killed her. They were her friends. Shebelieved in them absolutely; she never believed therumors during the Clone Wars that they were abus-ing their power."

"I don't know why Malorum is interested," Ferussaid. "I only know he must be stopped." Typho nodded. "I'll do what I can to help you.What do you need?"

"Do you know where he is right now?" Ferusasked.

"He's no longer in Theed," Typho replied. "Wejust got word from the Director of Essentials,who said that Malorum forced him to reveal thewhereabouts of Senator Amidala's maternal grand-mother. We've been trying to contact her, but she lives in seclusion and hasn't answered our commsignals." Ferus stood. "You'll have to direct us there. Butfirst, I need to speak to Queen Apailana."

Ferus and the others were ushered into theQueen's presence in the throne room in the palace.She was wearing her ornate ceremonial robes—deep blue with a matching headdress. Her face waspainted white, with a red slash on her upper lip,called the scar of remembrance. Captain Typhointroduced each of them, and they all inclinedtheir heads in a short bow. Typho then gave thequeen a brief explanation of why they were onNaboo.

"I'm honored to meet so many distinguishedguests," the Queen said in her soft voice. "I offer you welcome."

"Queen Apailana," Ferus said, bowing his headagain. "I have come to ask you something I have no right to ask you."

"Yet here you are," Queen Apailana said.

"I request that on my signal, you shut down allcomm systems on Naboo. Internal and externalcomm systems."

The Queen looked startled. "That is quite a largerequest," she said.

"Queen Apailana, the Jedi as we knew them areno more," Ferus explained. "Jedi Master Solace and I are among the last left alive. You were once a friendof the Jedi and the Republic. Please trust us once more. Malorum is dangerous not only to Naboo butto a peaceful future for the galaxy. I know what I ask is difficult."

"I am reluctant," the Queen said slowly. "Yet youare right — our history with the Jedi has led me to trust what they say. I never believed the officialstory of Senator Amidala's death. I have encouraged Captain Typho to keep searching for answers, even though it seems there are none to be had. Near the end of her life, the Senator still had faith in the Jedi.We were in constant contact, so I am sure of this. Istill think of the Jedi as friends — no matter if thereis one or one thousand."

"Then you'll do it?"

"On two conditions," the Queen said. "One,that you send the signal only out of the most dire necessity."

"That of course would be the case," Ferusanswered.

"Two, I will shut communications down for onehour only," Queen Apailana continued. "I cannot endanger the citizens of Naboo for longer than that.We can fake an outage for a time, but the Imperial presence will become suspicious if the outage lastsany longer."

Ferus inclined his head. "That should be all Ineed. Thank you."

"Thank you for your service," the Queen replied.Now it was her turn to incline her head in a gesture of respect to Ferus and the others. "Thank you fornot giving up."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ryoo Thule had been up before dawn. Shehad walked down to the lake to see the sunrise.She had noticed on the way to her home, as sheclimbed the steep grade back to the house, thatshe was out of breath. Yet she didn't feel winded,exactly.

She pressed a hand to her side, then against herheart. She was an elder now, but she was still surprised when her body told her so. She remained robust and strong, still capable ofwalking the steep, winding paths of the cliffsides along the lake. She just had to learn to walk slowly,not scamper up the way she had when she was a child.

That must be it.

On those early morning walks her family strolledbeside her. Not the family who still lived, her daughter Jobal, her son-in-law Ruwee, their child Sola and her children, her own namesake Ryoo and her sisterPooja. Not her sister and her children.

It was her husband, long dead, who walkedbeside her. Her good friend, Winama Naberrie (how they had plotted to marry off their children! Howsurprised they'd been when they'd actually fallen inlove!) and her beloved grandchild, Padme. In someways Padme felt closer to her now that she wasgone. From an early age Padme had been on her wayto somewhere else. Oh, she had been the most loving granddaughter possible, but her visits had beenrespites from a busy life. She'd never suggested, by word or look, that this was the case. Her whole hearthad been in those visits. Ryoo had felt it just the same, because she was closer to Padme than any ofher other granddaughters. She'd had her secrets. Ryoo knew that. She'dknown before Padme had that she was in love.She'd known that love was entwined with heart-break.

Padme's death had broken her own heart. Ryoohad, according to custom, been the overseer ofher funeral. She had kissed her granddaughter'scold cheek. She had tucked small white blossomsinto her clothing and hair. She had wept on a coldfloor.

The grief was still a stone in her belly, but she'dfound peace here. Padme had loved this place, and Padme was all around her. Padme was part of thegalaxy now.

Part of her stays. Somewhere out there inthe stars. I feel it. It is enough to feel it. Perhaps someday... Ryoo stood at the window looking out at theazure lake. She pressed a hand to her chest and felther heart flutter. Why had she woken this morningwith such a sense of foreboding? Why did Padmefeel so especially close to her today?

What was this feeling? Why was she so restless?

She had been here for six months, mourning. Itwas time to return to her life in Theed. She wasn'ttoo old to find a renewed sense of purpose. Padmewould want that.

Maybe that was the source of her anxiety. Sheknew it was time to let go of her grief, and she was reluctant. She had to remind herself that leavingthis place wouldn't mean leaving her memories ofPadme behind.

Ryoo paused by the comlink station. Its insistentblinking told her of messages she should listen to. But she wasn't ready. Not now. Later. Her familywas used to her returning messages later in the day. They wouldn't worry. They knew her grief neededsolitude.

Ryoo smiled at that insistent red light. It spokeof the warm voices of friends and family, eager tobring her news or check on her well-being. It con-tained the threads of her life. It was time to pick them up again.

She would leave tomorrow. It was time.

She heard footsteps in the reception hall below.Strange. She was alone here, without servants, and the neighbors weren't close. She would have seen agondola, or a speeder, if someone had come tovisit. She walked down the stairs, her slippers whis-pering on the stone. He stood, his face in shadow. His robe was deepmaroon, the color of dried blood. For a moment hersteps faltered. It was as though Death himself hadcome to call.

Then she recognized the flutter she had felt allmorning, the unease. It wasn't old age at all, it wasn't restlessness or the realization it was time to be gone.

It was fear.

Padme, Padme, I'm afraid.

She told herself she was being ridiculous. She'dbeen right; she'd been here too long alone. She walked forward, her hand outstretched, ready togreet the stranger, for on Naboo every stranger is a. potential friend.

He threw back the hood. She saw his eyes, andsuddenly she understood, with absolute certainty, what she'd felt the moment she'd awakened. She'dlooked for the streaks of lavender that meant thesun was rising, light infiltrating darkness. Now sheknew what had been chasing her throughout theday, what she'd believed, what she'd feared.

She was going to die today.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The old woman was still strong. At first sheappeared to greet the stranger with respect. She even offered him tea, which he refused. Malorum hadn'treceived the title of Inquisitor for nothing. He knew when even the most skillful being was holding back.

No matter. He would find out. He had come to theend of his journey. He had no more time to waste.

"I know about Naboo rituals," he said. "I knowthat you were in charge of your granddaughter's funeral."

The woman, small and sturdy, her white haircoiled in back of her head, smiled in a condescend-ing way that made Malorum's vision go red for amoment. "No one is 'in charge' in our funeral rites. Iwas there to support our grieving family. Naboo, yousee, is not hierarchical like your system. Yes, we havea queen, but we elect her, as well as her advisors."

Malorum felt his teeth grind. "I don't need a les-son on Naboo political philosophy." She inclined her head, but he could see its mean-ing. She thought him a pompous fool. She would learn.

"The grandmother is there to make sure every-thing runs smoothly. This can be quite complicatedin a state funeral," she continued.

"Senator Amidala died of what, would you say?"

"We don't know."

"Were there marks on her body?"

He saw her flinch. She pressed her lips togetherand shook her head.

"Who brought her to Theed?"

"I don't know. I was summoned after she'darrived."

"She couldn't have come on her own," Malorum said dryly. "She was dead when she got here." The grandmother's cheeks suddenly flushedwith anger. She didn't like the casual way hespoke of her beloved granddaughter. Yet he waschoosing his words with great care. The only wayhe would get anything out of this woman was toanger her.

"Whoever brought her to us did so with greatcare and gentleness, and that was all that concernedus at the time," she answered.

"She was pregnant."

Her lips pressed together.

"Did the family know who the father of herchild was?"

"That is a private matter."

"Would you like to spend some time in an Imperialprison?"

"No, not really," the woman said. "But if youthink threatening me with it will give you the answersyou want, you're mistaken."

She looked at him. Her eyes were dark graydusted with gold. Unusual eyes. He was almost mesmerized for a moment, seeing himself reflected inthem, seeing all the contempt she felt. He got a sud-den flash of what she was inside, what she wasfeeling.

Love. Great love.

Strength. Courage.

He pushed those irrelevancies aside and lookedbeneath.

Something she'd suspected, something only shesuspected .. .

"Padme did not share with us the father's name,"she said. He could see perspiration around her hair

-line. She was nervous. "We didn't ask. Such thingsare private matters on Naboo. Because of the Clone Wars we hadn't seen her in several months. She wasthe light of our lives, and our sorrow and grief is more than you could possibly know. Why you thinkyou have a right to come here and question me is beyond my understanding."

"I do have a right," Malorum said. "The Emperorhas given me that right. I am his personal representative." He was talking, but the words were too familiar,he had said them so many times. He was listening now. He was hearing what she was feeling, not whatshe was saying.

"Did you know Anakin Skywalker?" he suddenlybarked.

"He was a friend of my granddaughter's," the oldwoman said.

"Did you ever suspect that he was the father ofher unborn child?" Something flashed in her eyes, not anger thistime. Something . . . it was the key. She knew something.

No . . .suspected.

He thought of the intuition inside him, what hethought of as his "river." It had always been there. When he was younger he believed he was justsmarter than anybody else. Now he knew it wasn't intelligence, it was another sense, bigger than hewas. His frustration was that he couldn't control itthe way he wanted to.

But it was here now, and he could focus it onRyoo Thule.

His gaze must have unnerved her, for she lookedaway. He felt something rise in her, some hope, something she was grasping even as she battledagainst his will. Something she did not want him toknow, and would never betray.

The knowledge ripped through his brain like arip in fabric, tearing away his misconceptions.He almost leaped with the exaltation of it. Onlythe most strict discipline, the habit of years ofinterrogations, kept him standing, with the sameexpressionless face.

The child was alive.

She had spoken of her granddaughter, but neverof the child she carried. That she did not was in itselfa signal.

"The child is alive," he said. He could see on her face that she believed it. Now the questions came quickly as he advancedupon her, as she shrank before him.

"Have you ever seen the child?"

"Has anyone contacted you about the child?"

"Has anyone visited the child?"

"Did Padmè know the child was living beforeshe died?"

"Did she give the child to someone?"

"Is someone hiding the child?"

"Where is the child?"

The questions kept coming. The old womanthrew up her hands as if to ward them off likeblows. When she regained control and lifted her face, itwas filled with defiance. She knew little, he could see, and she would tell him nothing.

So he killed her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The beauty of the lake was astonishing. Varykinoperfectly fitted into the landscape, turrets and domes rising from the rocks and water as they spedtoward it, so close to the lake that their Naboo water craft, a gondola speeder, kicked up a wake.

Ferus barely noticed the deep jewel color of thelake, the arcing sky overhead. Before the gondola speeder had come to a halt he vaulted off it. He wasfilled with foreboding. He and Solace left the others behind as theyForce-leaped up the cliffs, finding toeholds and handholds while in midair. The others charged upthe path.

The door to the graceful villa was wide open. Hecharged inside, his lightsaber held aloft. Ryoo Thule lay crumpled on the stone floor. Heleaned down and with great gentleness touched her cheek. It was warm.

Suddenly her eyes opened, giving him a shock.He'd thought she was dead. Her life force was almost extinguished.

Her eyes widened just slightly when she saw hislightsaber. He felt her fear dissolve and she lookedat him with something like friendship. With that oneglance he knew Padme's family did not blame theJedi for her death.

"He suspects," she whispered.

"Malorum?"

A nod. Then suddenly she seemed to gatherstrength. Strength enough to grab his tunic. "He can'ttell anyone what he knows. You must protect . . ."

She lost her breath. Her fingers opened and shefell back.

"Protect what?" Ferus felt the urgency. He waslost in implication and mystery and everything hedidn't know.

"For Padme," she whispered. "For Padme."Life left her then. He turned. Solace sat behind him on her haunchesas easily as if on a chair.

"Want to tell me what's going on?" she asked.

Ferus looked at her helplessly. "I can't. I don'teven know. I just know there's a secret that threat-ens the galaxy. Ryoo knew it, and now Malorumdoes, and we have to stop him. Obi-Wan Kenobiwarned me."

She rose smoothly, quickly. She didn't needany more information. What he said was enough.

"Kenobi? Then let's do it."

They ran out the door. The others were just hit-ting the top step.

"It's too late," Ferus said. "He's gone. But Ithink he's around here — we would have seen himtake off."

"He must have hidden his craft," Oryon said.

"This flaming coastline is full of coves," Clivesaid. "But we should send the signal now!" As soon as that was done, Ferus said, "Let's splitup into twos. Malorum is a handful. Stay here, Trever."

"No."

Clive whistled. "It's so inspiring how he followsorders." Ferus couldn't wait to straighten it out, so hetook off alone. He knew Trever would follow, andhe also knew the boy would stay undercover. Hisheartbeat drummed inside him with urgency.Thefuture of the galaxy is at stake,Obi-Wan had said.The secret can't get out.

Luckily the communications were being jammed,so Malorum couldn't share his information.Until the hour was up.

Ferus leaped to a spot on the steep side of the cliff,then jumped again. His boots landed in soft sand.

He heard the lapping of the blue water. The songof a bird. He felt the Force gather and now he couldnot only hear everything with crystal clarity but feelit as well, pulsating through him. The Living Force was near. The dark side of theForce pulsed. He raced down the beach in that direc-tion. A cluster of large rocks was scattered in the bay,and he Force-leaped onto the first, leap-froggingfrom one to the other until he was past the point ofthe land. Now he could see Malorum in a speedergondola, ready to take off. Malorum looked over andsaw him and the craft shot forward over the lake.

Ferus vaulted into the air and soared towardthe craft. Malorum suddenly yanked on the steering mechanism, so the craft was headed straight towardhim now at top speed. Ferus reacted as a Jedi. He did not retreat. He used the advance of his enemy tohis own advantage. He stopped his momentum in midair, waiting outthe microsecond it took for Malorum to reach him. Then he somersaulted neatly over the craft. He usedthe updraft to power himself out of harm's way, then dropped onto the gondola.

Well — not dropped, exactly, in the neat wayhe could have accomplished even as an apprentice. Rather, he fell awkwardly, sprawling on the hull.

Sometimes the Force worked for him. Some-times it didn't.

Malorum yanked the craft to the right, dipping itclose to the water. Ferus flipped over, his feet skipping over the surface. At this speed, the water feltlike permacrete.

"Ow," Ferus grunted through his teeth as thegondola bumped along and he hung on for his life."Ow, ow, ow."

Using all his strength, he flipped himself backinto the boat. This time he was able to access theForce with more precision, pivoting on his handsand delivering a well-placed kick to Malorum'schest. Malorum was knocked backward, looseninghis grip on the controls. The gondola began to spincrazily. Ferus was almost thrown off the craft butreached out and grabbed on to the curved stern tosteady himself. He reached for his lightsaber and ac-tivated it just as Malorum began to pepper him withblasterfire. It was impossible for the Inquisitor to aim inthese conditions, but he was doing a good job of try-ing. Ferus used the curved stern as a fulcrum, swing-ing around it as the gondola bounced, his lightsaber fending off the red and orange blaster streaks.

Off in the distance he saw the other gondo-las approaching. Solace piloted one with Oryonhanging on grimly. Curran and Keets were in theother. Where were Trever and Clive? Malorum pulled back the fabric of his robe onone arm. Ferus felt the warning as propulsion. He leaped at his assailant. In midair he saw the gleamof the rocket launcher on Malorum's wrist. Malorum surprised him by rolling underneath him and thenreleasing the rocket. Solace saw it before the others. She turned hergondola violently, shouting at Curran as she did so. He was too late. Unable to save the ship, he andKeets leaped into the water. The explosion sentshock waves across the lake.

And then Ferus saw Clive and Trever. Of course, he thought. The two thieves had stolen a boat. It was a fast craft, sleek, with a chromium hulland a repulsorlift engine. Larger than the gondolas,it was still highly maneuverable and tremendouslyfast. Clive was piloting it straight at Ferus andMalorum. The gondola was still moving at top speed, butwithout a pilot it swung in arcs and bounced on air currents and waves. Clive was heading straight forthem, no doubt hoping to distract Malorum. It was a good plan. Ferus only hoped he didn't fall off beforeit happened.

Suddenly the air was alive with armoredImperial IPV-1 patrol craft. Malorum must havecalled them in before the Queen had been able tocut off communications.

The water around them exploded as the missileshit. The missiles were designed to intimidate. They couldn't risk hitting Malorum. But some of thepatrol craft peeled off to attack the other gondolasand Clive and Trever's boat.

Ferus watched as one patroller dipped towardhim. He leaped at Malorum, who shot his blasterat close range in Ferus's face. Ferus managed todeflect the blaster fire but Malorum dove toward aliquid cable that suddenly appeared above, higherthan Ferus imagined he could. Malorum didn'tbother to hook the cable, he just hung on as theIPV-1 took off higher, trailing Malorum behind. Ferus leaped and managed to grab the tail endof the cable. In midair he saw the missiles headingfor Clive's boat. Clive and Trever leaped off at thelast possible second as their vessel was obliterated.At the same moment, two other patrol craft wentafter Curran and Keets, bobbing in the waves. Theremaining Imperial pilots all turned toward Solacein the last gondola.

Ferus looked up into the muzzle of a repeat-ing gun. He saw Malorum's fervid, triumphant face.He letgo of the cable and dropped into the coldblue lake.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ferus plunged into the cold water as far downas he could to escape the fire above, inserting his Aquata breather into his mouth as he swam. Hepushed forward in the direction he'd last seenTrever. He wasn't sure how good a swimmer the boywas, or if he could swim at all. He didn't know ifClive had a breather. Standard equipment for some,but not for others. Thanks to his Jedi training, Feruswas in the habit of having one on his utility belt,even if he was traveling to a desert world. The water was so clear he should have been ableto make out the others, but instead he saw nothing, just endless blue. Ferus fought against disorienta-tion. He'd seen the others dive into the lake — where could they have gone? He swam farther down, feel-ing the pressure on his ears. He began to feel anxious.He couldn't abandon his friends, but he had to getback to Theed. Suddenly he saw a strange sight — a shimmer-ing transparent bubble heading toward him through the water. Was it some strange sea creature?

No — it was a ship. A ship shaped like a creaturewith a long tail. Inside he could just make out the shapes of beings.

Gungans.

Of course. Gungans ruled the underwater worldof Naboo. From all he'd heard, they were friendly beings. Although they could wage a pretty nastybattle if they had to. Just his type.

The strangely beautiful sub bobbed closer tohim. The cockpit seemed to bend as it came closer,and Ferus stopped, motionless in the water, fanninghis arms to keep himself in place. He felt no fear,only wonder.

A hand reached out through the cockpit bubbleand somehow pulled him in. The rest of the group was crowded inside. Trever gave him a wan smile.Water streaming from his clothes, he dropped into a. seat next to Solace.

"Nice rescue," he panted.

"Meesa welcome you to the bongo on behalf ofall Gungans," their smiling pilot said. His friendlyeyes twinkled at Ferus. "Good to stay underwaterwhen the mackineek troopers are above."

"Where's Malorum?" Trever asked.

"He escaped," Ferus said. "I have no doubt he'son his way to Imperial headquarters at Theed. That's surely where he left his transport." He turned totheir pilot. "We need your help."

"Meesa can take you anywhere you want —"

"No," Ferus interrupted. "All of you." He reachedquickly for his comlink. After only a few seconds, hewas put directly through to Queen Apailana. It wasthe only channel that had been left open.

"I need to call in another small favor," he said.

"You ask for much, Jedi Olin."

"You have no idea."

Now Trever had seeneverything.He couldn'tget over it. The underwater city had suddenlyappeared, a series of huge bubbles like illuminatedlamps. Inside were wide pathways with shadowypatterns and a murky green light.

And Gungans — he'd never even heard of them.He liked their friendliness and their loose-jointed strides. He felt safe in their underwater city. Hewould have liked to forget about everything happen-ing above, but of course he was with Ferus-Wan, theowner of a one-track Jedi mind. Ferus asked to be taken immediately to their leader, explaining thathe and Solace were Jedi. Their rescuer, the pilot Yunabana, had been so excited that he'd taken them directly to Boss Nassat a run.

Boss Nass resided in his own series of bubbles.While most of the Gungans were slender, Boss Nass was huge. His green skin had a grayish tinge, andTrever could tell he was an elder. He had three dou-ble chins and was wearing an elaborate coat thesame color as his skin, so he resembled a giantgreenish blob. He sat in a huge chair with wavingfronds.

Now the Queen of Naboo was on holoprojec-tor. The Naboo and the Gungans both felt thatthey owed the Jedi a great debt. They believedthat the Jedi had been their only true friendsduring the Trade Federation blockade and hadbeen responsible for helping them liberate theirworlds. They readily agreed to a conference withFerus.

Trever stood back with Clive, Keets, Curran, andOryon as Solace and Ferus thanked Boss Nass and the Queen, and Boss Nass thanked the Jedi, andthe Queen thanked Boss Nass, and Boss Nass thanked the Queen for what seemed a very longtime, and finally everyone was silent.

"What is it that you want from us?" QueenApailana finally asked.

"Wesa glad to help if help is needed," BossNass said. He placed his hands on his belly andleaned back.

Ferus looked a bit nervous. He never lookednervous. Trever saw him swallow. It must be a big request.

"I need you both to use your security forcesto attack and destroy the Imperial headquarters,"he said. Boss Nass jumped to his feet. "Yousa crazy?" heroared. "Attack Imperials? Maxi-bad strategy mesafriend! Yousa noticed they be controlink the wide-sea galaxy?" Queen Apailana's tone was milder, but it wasclear she was shocked as well. "Surely you realizethe retribution that would be inflicted afterwardupon both the Naboo and the Gungans. The Emperorwould crush us. It would be swift and terrible, andmany civilians would perish."

"That's for sure," Trever said under his breath.Ferus shot him a look that he didn't need a transla-tor for.Don't speak.

"I understand the magnitude of what I ask,"Ferus said.

"Why do you ask then?" Queen Apailana said.

"The future of the galaxy depends on it," Ferussaid. "That I can promise you. The head of the Imperial Inquisitors, Malorum, has found out animportant secret. If he is able to reveal it to theEmperor it could destroy any hope we have of some-day living in peace and true justice."

"What is this secret?" the Queen asked.

"That I can't tell you. Yet you must trust me. Wemust strike this blow here, now." There was a pause, so Ferus continued. "I have away to avoid retribution. I would not propose this otherwise. I promise that hp harm will come to yourpeople."

"I'm listening," Queen Apailana said.

Boss Nass sat back. "Mesa, too."

Ferus turned back to Queen Apailana. "Yourinformation network has reported that the Empireis illegally stockpiling destructive weapons in theTheed hangar in defiance of Senate regulations. Ifwe blow up the weapons cache it would seem like adisaster the Empire had brought on itself. The offi-cials back on Coruscant would wish to hush up theexplosion so that the Senate wouldn't hear about it.The Emperor may despise the Senate, but he stillneeds it to cloak his crimes."

"Your plan depends on our winning the battle,"Queen Apailana said.

"The combined might of the Naboo and Gunganwarriors can defeat a battalion," Solace said.

"They'vegone up against far worse and won."

"I have the greatest confidence in the courageand daring of both your peoples," Ferus added. Queen Apailana said nothing. Because of herelaborate makeup, Trever couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Suddenly Boss Nass lurched up, slapping thearms of his chair. "What a berry good trick, you say, Jedi! Get rid of Empire, protecting all our people,and no onesa ever thinkin' well of us! Bringsa outthe fambaa anda power us up!"

They all turned to the holographic screen. TheQueen's image was still impassive.

"Yes," she said slowly. "It is a berry good trick, asmy friend Boss Nass says. And it might remove theEmpire from Naboo for some time. If it works."

"Will you commit your forces?" Ferus asked. "Wecan draw up the battle plans here and coordinate when we reach Theed."

"Faster issa to goes underwater," Boss Nass said."Wesa can bring the army thatta way."

"We'll be ready," Queen Apailana said.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ferus and the others waited aboard a Gunganmilitary launching ship beneath the lake in Theed.Since the Trade Federation battle, the Gungans haddesigned troop transports, long and narrow, thatcould navigate the water caverns that networkedbelow the surface of Naboo.

The transports lined up underneath the lake,their mineral skins tinted blue-green for camouflage.They waited for the signal from Captain Typho.Ferus exchanged a glance with Trever. He no longerbothered to order Trever to stay behind. It was awaste of breath.

Solace, Ferus, and Oryon would leave first. Theywere to head immediately to Imperial headquarters and break in. Ferus would split off and go forMalorum. Solace and Oryon would head off anyattempt of Imperial officers to escape. Usually thehigher up the officer, the more you could count ontheir having a separate escape route from the rest ofthe battalion.

Clive had begged off being included. "I'm a soloact," he told them. "Wars make me nervous." Solace had snorted her disapproval.

The signal came. The Gungan ships rose slowlyand then burst through the surface. Ramps slidout and connected with the land. Ferus, Solace, andOryon raced off the ship. The Naboo security force was already mobilizingin the streets, marching toward headquarters. Ferus could see several panicked stormtroopers racing toreturn to the building. Already ranks were forming lines on the building's wide steps. The first fire rangout from the front lines. He would join the fight, but first he had to findMalorum.

They raced around the corner of Imperial head-quarters and released liquid cables. It brought them up to the first bank of windows. Ferus had alreadynetworked with the Naboo and knew where the officers were located. Solace paused. The sounds of battle had esca-lated. "May the Force be with you," she said. Ferus nodded and took off through a window.He ran down the halls, which rang with confusion as officers scrambled to load data onto computers, nodoubt following some sort of Empire protocol for a surprise attack. Others ran toward the back ofthe building where Ferus knew it connected withthe Theed hangar.

That was where Malorum would be headed. Hewouldn't stand arid fight. He would cut and run. Ferus's increased his speed, mowing down storm-troopers that got in his way: The thud of his boots sounded out his purpose. He held his lightsaber aloft.

He burst through the grand double doors of thehangars. Amid the gleaming ships and stacks of cartons he saw the flicker of a red cape. Malorum hadseen him and was running away. He chased himdown a long hallway that connected to anothergrand building.

The hallway opened up into a gigantic circulararea. Platforms and bridges were stacked hundredsof meters high. The space was filled with a low-levelhum. He was in the Theed power generator. The knowledge thudded through his brain. Thiswas where the great Jedi Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, had fallen. Every Padawan had heard the story.

It was here,Ferus thought.This is the place Obi-Wan fought Darth Maul to the death. But now it was different. He wasn't fighting aSith. He was fighting an Imperial Inquisitor — skilled, with powerful weapons, yes. But not a Sith.

Then Malorum turned, baring his teeth in a smile.And showed Ferus his lightsaber.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ferus was startled. He and Obi-Wan had bothfelt that Malorum was a Force-sensitive. But thatwas a long way from being proficient with alightsaber.

Where had he received lightsaber training?Malorum held the lightsaber easily in a classic ready stance, the red shaft projecting downward.

Ferus circled him slowly, holding his dark gaze.So. A former Jedi and a Sith pretender were aboutto fight. Interesting.

Malorum charged. The two lightsabers clashed.Ferus felt a surprising amount of power from Malorum. Maybe this wouldn't be so easy.

But it would be done.

He whirled around in a one-hundred-eightydegree turn, kicking out with his foot at the samemoment. He missed Malorum's chin by a whisker.

Ferus liked to fight with his boots as well as hislightsaber. He had learned to fight without a lightsaber when he'd been a regular citizen of Bellassa.Sometimes that meant fighting dirty. Looking for openings, using whatever materials came to hand.He could still street-fight if he had to. He fought without urgency just yet, circlingMalorum, challenging him, watching him for weak-nesses. Ferus ticked them off in his head. Malorumrelied on agility but had little grace. He had strengthbut did not know how to use it effectively. But mostof all — and this was what Ferus was sure woulddefeat him —

Ferus could feel Malorum's emotionin his style. Anger fueled his attacks. It was a mis-take many made. Not a Jedi.

After feints and attacks, they came to a long pas-sage with curving walls. A series of energy gates randown it. Electron rays pulsed in a rhythmic fashion.Ferus remembered this from the story he'd heard asa Padawan. The energy gates had slowed Obi-Wanand he'd been unable to come to his Master's aid inhis final battle with Darth Maul. In those crucial sec-onds, he'd watched Qui-Gon receive the fatal blow and fall, right before his eyes.

Here he was in the middle of a battle, and he wassuddenly pierced with a sharp sympathy for Obi-Wan.For the past weeks he'd been intimidated by theJedi Master, irritated by his silences, upset at hisdecisions. Now he fully realized how little he under-stood of what lay beneath. I can't imagine what he's seen. How he's suffered. What he's lost. He made it through the first energy gate but sud-denly they buzzed shut behind and ahead of him. Malorum was in the next chamber. How odd it wasto see your enemy and be unable to move. He could just make out Malorum's words.

"You can't stop me," Malorum said. "You can onlyslow me down."

"Oh, I'll stop you," Ferus replied. "Even thoughI'll miss our conversations." The energy gates sprang open. Ferus jumpedforward, swinging his lightsaber. Malorum parriedand came a little too close to connecting to Ferns'sshoulder. He had to leap backward, and the energygates shut again.

"I've learned from the best," Malorum gruntedthrough his teeth.

"SIN Tachi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Soara Antana. Yodahimself." Ferus didn't know if Malorum could hearhim, but he felt the names of his teachers resonateinside him like a powerful chant. "You don't know what the best is."

The energy gates opened again and Ferus surgedforward, driving Malorum backward. "Want to be aSith, Malorum?" he taunted. "Is that it? Palpatine'spuppy is tired of biting ankles?" Rage darkened Malorum's face. Good. Exactlywhat he'd hoped.

Malorum sprang forward in a fast combinationthat Ferus had a tough time parrying. The darkside of the Force hummed with him now as hisanger grew.

Okay, maybe it was time for a new strategy.

Malorum reversed directions and was able torun out onto a catwalk. Ferus leaped to follow him.He wondered if Malorum was heading for an exit.He knew if Malorum was able to get out of here, hewould lose him. It was almost as if Malorum knewthe way and was leading him on. Maybe he was try-ing to lead him back to the Imperial army, hopingthey were still fighting.

They fought furiously now, using every inch ofcatwalk. They fought around the deep central core, hundreds of meters down. Ferus used his advantageof Force agility to leap and somersault, giving power to his thrusts. He fought using the lightsaber only,saving another kick or an elbow for when he neededit, when Malorum wouldn't be looking for it.

He pushed Malorum back, forcing him to rely onbalance to avoid falling into the pit below. Malorum twisted and turned, but he was beginning to sweat.

Ferus saw his chance. He left himself slightlyopen, and Malorum charged. As he came in, Ferus slammed his elbow directly into Malorum's fore-head. It stunned him for a split second, and Ferusused the hilt of his lightsaber to smash Malorum'slightsaber out of his hands. The lightsaber shot out-ward, directly over the pit.

Malorum's mouth opened in a cry that echoedoff the walls. "No!" he shouted. Ferus could feel the Force pulsing as Malorum leaped into the air, strain-ing to catch the lightsaber as it spun. Straining to harness the Force to push the lightsaber hilt towardhim and carry him safely to the next catwalk. Don't . . strain ...Ferus watched Malorummake the elemental mistake of any early-year Jedistudent. He saw that Malorum was blinded by need. If helost the lightsaber, he would be disgraced. He wouldnever be a Sith.

Malorum's lightsaber dropped like a stone. Stillin midair, Malorum lost his grip on the Force. His cape flapped around him, and Ferus saw the panicin his eyes.

Then he dropped down, down, down, into thecentral core. And Obi-Wan's secret went with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The battle was over. Smoldering stormtrooperslay on the streets. Fallen officers were in the build-ing where they'd taken refuge.

Captain Typho strode toward Ferus as heemerged from the Theed generator. "Your friendsare all safe," he said, before Ferus could ask.

Ferus saw a blur of brown and blue, and Trever ran toward him, his blue hair flying, his tunic torn.

"Did you get Malorum? Did you stop him?"

"He fell into the central core of the generator."

"So the secret is safe," Solace said, coming up tothem. "Whatever it is."

"We'll clean up quickly," Captain Typho said."There will be no trace of battle. We've been monitoring the comet system. Coruscant Imperial Controlis trying to raise the battalion here but getting no response. They're sending a ship to investigate froma nearby system. It could be here within the hour.It's time to blow the weapons cache."

"Looks like we're up, mate," Clive said to Ferus."It'll be a mite tricky, but I think I've got the explo

-sives figured out so we can get out in time."

Ferus blinked at him. "You think?" he asked. Clive grinned. "Your pal here helped me with afew ideas." Ferus looked at Trever.

"Don't look at me that way," Trever said. "I'm notcoming with you this time. Do you think I'm crazy?"

Clive and Ferus entered the great Theed hangar,empty now of all personnel. The area around the hangar had been cleared of people and anyvaluables, just in case the hangar blew up thesurrounding area. Theed pilots had flown a fewships to safety, but they would have to sacrificesome of their fleet so that the blast wouldn't looksuspicious.

"The trick is to arrange the stuff so that it blowshere, in the center," Clive said. "The shock wave will go down, not out. But this side wall has to pack someexplosive power so that it blows the Imperial headquarters, too. We have to account for the loss ofthose stormtroopers."

"Let's do it," Ferus said.

They approached the boxes cautiously. Clivebegan to open them with a vibro-cutter.

"Some of this is highly volatile baradium," Clivesaid, eyeing the instructions on the durasteel boxes.

"Just don't drop anything."

"Right," Ferus muttered.

Carefully, they picked up the boxes and bins andmoved them to the center of the hangar. They took the highly volatile synthetic explosive and pushedit against the wall. Then Clive carefully walkedthrough, setting the sequence charges. "Trever fixedthese so that they'll disintegrate with the blast — notrace of metal or explosive will remain. They'll neverknow we blew it."

"So how are we getting out in time?" Ferus asked.

"The pattern is designed so that one alpha chargewill set off an explosion that will set off the next, and the next, and so on, until it gets so bloody hot inhere that the whole place goes up. It's going to be one crazy blow," Clive said fondly.

"Clive? How are we getting out?" Ferus asked,enunciating each word.

"Oh. I have a plan." Clive placed the last alphacharge against a drum of missile fuel.

"Good," Ferus breathed in relief.

"We run." Clive placed the last charge down andset it. "Now!" Ferus spurted after Clive, cursing him in hishead. Clive was one of those insane individuals who enjoyed extreme danger. Ferus felt the first explo-sion at his back. He felt the heat on his neck. He charged toward the doors. The next explosion gavehim a push at the small of his back that almost sent him sprawling. The third made the air come alive.He rode a wave of air out the double doors andlanded on his knees on the street. Clive rolled over,laughing.

"Come on, it's not over yet," he shouted.

The Imperial headquarters blew as they racedunder a pedestrian bridge. The bridge fell in ashower of mellow ochre stone. Ferus grabbed Cliveand Force-leaped to safety. Sprawled on their backs, they watched as halfthe hangar burned and Imperial headquarters collapsed in a heap of rubble and a giant cloud of dust. Coughing, they made their way to Solace, Oryon,Keets, Curran, and Trever, who were standing withCaptain Typho watching the awful spectacle.

"I'm sorry about the building," Ferus said. "It wasa gracious part of Theed. It will take a long time torebuild that hangar."

"It is a thing," Typho said. "The people of Nabooare more important."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The orbiting space platform in the RainbowNebulae was somewhere between Naboo andnowhere, and it was a good place to stop. The grouprefueled there. It had been imperative that they takeoff from Naboo immediately.

They all stood together while their ships werehooked up to the refueling stations. The sky above vibrated with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, andviolet.

"I heard from Typho on the way," Ferus told theothers. "The Empire is investigating, and it's already clear that they're going to engineer a coverup. Therewill be no retaliation on Naboo. And it appears that Malorum died in the explosion."

"Love it when a plan works like a well-timedchrono," Clive said. There was a pause. It was time to say good-bye,but no one was sure who was going where. Ferus was anxious to return to the roving aster-oid base. There were things to do, systems to set up. He needed to contact Obi-Wan and tell him that thethreat posed by Malorum was over.

"I have a safe place," he told the others.

"You only have to navigate through an atmo-spheric storm to get there," Trever amended.

"You are all welcome," Ferus said. "Each one ofyou is now an outlaw from the Empire. You'll need fresh text does, a place to lie low."

Ferus looked at Solace. He was creating the basefor surviving Jedi. Solace had told him she wanted no part of it. He hoped she would change her mind.

"All right, I'll come," she said gruffly. "But just tocheck it out." Oryon looked at Keets and Curran. "We've beentalking. As the Erased, we've hidden away for too long. We want to return to Coruscant. But we wouldwelcome a place to be quiet and make plans."

"After this little adventure, I could use a rest,"Clive said.

"You're going to come?" Solace asked disdain-fully. "I thought you were a solo act."

"Must be your sparkling personality," Clive said.

Ferus's comlink signaled. That was strange.There were only a few people in the galaxy withaccess. He walked a few steps away from the others.The message played, a miniature hologram. He stared, listening, and ice entered his veins.

He walked back to the others and placed hiscomlink on his palm. He held it out. "I think youneed to see this."

An image of Emperor Palpatine shimmered inthe air. "Greetings, Master Olin, for I think youdeserve that title. Times have changed, and you'vechanged with them. I think our departed InquisitorMalorum was a bit too hard on you. On behalf of theEmpire, I'd like to offer you amnesty."

"Hey, what about me?" Clive demanded of themessage.

"And I'm issuing you an invitation," Palpatine'smessage continued. "Come visit me on Coruscant. I give you my personal word that you will have safepassage. Let us speak together, and if what I offer doesn't interest you, you may take your amnestyand go. This offer stands for twenty-four hours fromthe receipt of this message. I hope to see you soon.We have much to discuss. Until then, farewell." The hologram faded.

Ferus looked at his friends. "So," he said, "what should we do? Accept a date with the Emperor?"

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY