Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter

Chapter 11

The building Darsha had entered was a monad-a kilometer- high, totally self-contained habitat. More than just an apartment complex, the huge structure, like countless others sprouting from the surface of Coruscant, contained virtually everything its tenants needed: living quarters, shops, hydroponic gardens, and even indoor parks. Many people, she knew, literally lived their entire lives in buildings like these, in some cases holocommuting to offices halfway around the planet without ever venturing outside.

She had never understood the attraction of such a life before. Now, however, she found herself in sympathy with such people in at least one respect: she had no desire to leave the building either. But her reluctance did not rise out of nascent agoraphobia; rather, it stemmed from the fact that to leave meant returning to the Jedi Temple, where she would have to face the council and admit her failure.

However, there was no other alternative. The council had to know of the Fondorian's death, and quickly. It was her duty to report her failure, no matter how shameful it was.

She had to climb four more flights of stairs before she reached a level that had a working lift tube. This she took up another ten levels, where she encountered a border checkpoint, complete with an armed guard droid, separating the downlevels ghetto from the functioning upper section of the monad. The droid eyed her disreputable appearance with some suspicion, but let her pass when it realized she was a Jedi.

When Darsha emerged from the building, she was in a much more familiar world. She walked out onto a transparent skybridge and looked down through the permacrete floor. The sleek sides of the buildings all around her fell away into darkness and fog. Beneath that fog was the abyss she had just escaped. If she was given a choice between returning to it or returning to the Temple to admit her defeat, she honestly wasn't sure which she would take.

But there was no choice, was there? Not really.

She made her way to an air taxi stand, aware of the stares that her torn clothing and bandaged wounds drew. Truly I am still trapped between worlds, she thought.

Just enough credit was left on her emergency tab to hire an air taxi that would take her back to the Temple. As Darsha settled into the vehicle's backseat, she felt suddenly overcome by lassitude. It was all she could do not to fall asleep as the taxi made its short journey. She recognized the drowsiness as not so much a reaction to the trials she had just undergone but as an attempt to escape what lay ahead.

All too soon the commute was over. Darsha paid the driver and entered the Temple. As far back as she could remember, passing through the doors had been a source of comfort to her. It meant a return to sanctuary, to safety, to a place where the cares and worries of the rest of the world were left behind. She did not feel this way now. Now the high walls and soft lighting induced anxiety and claustrophobia.

She shook her head and squared her shoulders. Might as well get it over with. At this time of day she would most likely find Master Bondara in his quarters. She would report to her mentor first; then, in all likelihood, they would both go to the council.

Darth Maul had made an error.

The enormity of that knowledge weighed upon him like a giant planetoid. He had underestimated the bounty hunter because the woman had not been strong in the Force. Such a mistake had almost cost him his life-and how ignominious would that have been, to die at the hands of a common bounty hunter, he who had been trained to fight and slay Jedi!

He could not make such dangerous assumptions.

He would not make them again.

He knew what his next move had to be. Hath Monchar was dead, but there was still the human to deal with. As Maul emerged from the building the police and firefighting droids were already starting to arrive. He could not cloud the cognitive circuits of droids as easily as he could organic brains, and so he had to move quickly into the shadowy surface streets to avoid questioning.

He found a deserted blind alley a few blocks away and activated his wrist comm. A moment later the image of Darth Sidious appeared before him.

"Tell me what progress you have made," Sidious said.

"The tergiversator Hath Monchar has been killed. He has shared his knowledge with one other-a human named Lorn Pavan. I know where the human lives. I go now to find him and kill him."

"Excellent. Do so as quickly as possible. You are certain that no one else knows of this?"

"Yes, Master. I-" Maul stopped suddenly in shocked realization. The holocron!

As always, Sidious immediately knew that something was wrong. "What is it?" the Sith Lord demanded.

Darth Maul knew he would have to admit failure. He did not hesitate. The concept of lying to his master never even occurred to him. "Monchar possessed a holocron that he said contains the information. I had an opportunity to acquire it, but I-failed to do so." It would be pointless to try to exculpate himself by telling Sidious of the bounty hunter's unexpected appearance and the subsequent explosion that he had barely escaped. The only important fact was that the holocron was not in his possession.

Maul saw Darth Sidious's eyes narrow in disapproval. "You disappoint me, Lord Maul."

He felt that censure spear him like an icy shaft. No trace of it showed on his face. "I am sorry, my master."

"Your tasks are now twofold: Destroy this Lorn Pavan and find the crystal."

"Yes, my master."

Sidious regarded Maul steadily for a moment. "Do not fail me again." The hologram vanished.

Darth Maul stood silently for a moment in the perennial darkness of the city's surface. His breathing was steady and even, his body motionless. Only one trained to sense the whorls and verticils of the Force would get A. sense of the dark storm that raged within him.

His master had rebuked him. And rightly so. That crystal could be the ruination of all Darth Sidious's carefully laid plans. And he, Darth Maul, heir to the Sith, had left it behind when he had fled for his life.

Fool!

Maul's nostrils flared as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He had no time for self-recrimination. The Neimoidian's cubicle was no doubt already overrun with police droids searching for a clue to the explosion. They would hardly overlook an information crystal lying in an opened safe.

There was, of course, the possibility that it had been destroyed in the explosion, but he couldn't count on that. He would have to go back and find out what had happened to it, even if every police droid on Coruscant was packed into that tiny room.

And after he had found the holocron and disposed of the human, then he would have to face whatever punishment Darth Sidious would undoubtedly devise for his lamentable failure.

Maul strode out of the alley and back toward the domicile.

Lorn found I-Five just venturing into the first floor of the building-or trying to, as the stampede of panicked tenants had filled all the exits. Though the droid's metallic face was expressionless as always, he still somehow managed to project concern, followed by relief as he saw Lorn.

"Let's get out of here," Lorn muttered to the droid. "Fast."

"That sounds like a remarkably astute idea."

Walking quickly, they soon put several city blocks between themselves and the debacle. Then I-Five said, "It appears that all did not go entirely according to plan."

"Ever a master of the understatement." Lorn explained what had happened. "I have no idea who the dead woman was. I have no idea what caused the explosion. I have no idea who killed the Neimoidian and his goons. What I do have is this." He pulled the holocron from a pocket.

I-Five took it and looked closely at it. "It appears to be encoded," the droid said. "It definitely contains some sort of information. Whether it's the details of the trade embargo of Naboo or a recipe for Alderaan stew is impossible to tell without activating it."

"It better well be what Monchar said it is." Lorn glanced at his wrist chrono. "We've got barely enough time to make the meeting with the Hurt and then get to the spaceport."

"I would predict another half hour or so of grace.

Most of the local law enforcement will be more interested in the explosion than in catching us. Nevertheless, I agree that a hasty retreat is called for. I took the liberty of using our temporary wealth to secure two berths on the next spice transport bound for the Rim. Once we have the money from the Hutt we can pay the fare in cash."

Lorn nodded. I-Five was right; the important thing was to unload the holocron and get offworld as quickly as possible. It was likely that whoever had terminated Hath Monchar was looking for the crystal, and Lorn most definitely did not want to make his acquaintance. In his mind's eye he could still vividly see the Neimoidian's headless body lying on the floor of the apartment, along with his bodyguards. One of them had been decapitated, as well.

He stopped abruptly, paralyzed by shock. I-Five looked at his face, then quickly dragged him out of the stream of foot traffic. "What is it?"

"No blood," Lorn said.

I-Five said nothing. He waited.

"Whoever did Monchar cut off his head. One of the Quarren bodyguards got the same treatment. But there was no blood to speak of. You understand? No blood. That means-"

"Cauterization. Fusion of the tissues by sudden intense heat." I-Five paused, and Lorn knew the droid had reached the same conclusion that he had. "Perhaps a quick lateral movement of a blaster on continuous fire-"

"The particle beam from a hand blaster-even a DL-44-isn't that hot, and you know it. On a straight line, yeah, it can seal as it burns, but to cauterize something the size of a neck would take several seconds. It would have to have been done after Monchar was dead, and what's the sense of that?

"There's only one weapon capable of doing it instantaneously. The same weapon that was used to cut the lock out of the durasteel door."

"A lightsaber." I-Five glanced about as if to assure himself that no one was listening. "Are you saying a Jedi killed Monchar?"

"Much as I hate to admit it, executions aren't their style." Lorn's mouth was suddenly very dry; he had to swallow several times before he could continue. "Which leaves only one other logical choice."

"The Sith? Impossible. The last one died over a thousand years ago."

"That's what everyone believes. But it's the only conclusion that makes any sense. The Jedi have kept the details of lightsaber manufacture secret for millennia. To create and use one, you have to be adept in the Force. And the Sith were the only other order of Force-sensitives the galaxy has ever known."

"And why couldn't it just as easily be a rogue Jedi? One who has succumbed to some kind of psychosis-a failing organic beings are often prone to, I've noticed. I think you're jumping to conclusions," I-Five said.

"No, I'm not." Lorn grabbed the droid and pulled him along as he started to walk faster. "I'm jumping on that spice transport and getting off this overbuilt rock-and so are you." He spied a public trash disintegrator across the street and changed course, with I-Five still in tow. "And we're getting rid of this Holocron, right now."

They stopped before the disintegrator receptacle. Lorn pulled the information crystal from a pocket, but before he could throw it in, I-Five grabbed his arm.

"Now I know you're crazy," the droid said. "That Holocron is our only chance to build a new life. And how will we pay our passage on the spice freighter? We can't just-"

Lorn shoved the droid up against the graffiti-frescoed wall of a large hydro-reclamation processor. Pedestrians of various and sundry species passed them, paying little or no attention to the altercation.

"Listen to me," Lorn said through clenched teeth. "If I'm right, there's a Sith out there. He's probably looking for this." He held up the Holocron. "He can't be bought off, scared off, or thrown off the trail, and he'll stop at nothing to get it. I don't fancy having my neck cauterized."

"Let's say you're right," I-Five said. "Let's say;V] Monchar's mysterious assassin is a Sith. Let's say he wants the crystal, and he knows we have it. Let's say he corners us before we reach the Hurt and demands we give it to him. Which will make him happier with us-handing him the crystal, or telling him we destroyed it?"

Lorn paused, trying to quell his panic. He knew he wasn't using his brain-at least, not the part parked directly behind his forehead. He was thinking with the organ's hindquarters, the primal fight-or-flight component.

But fight-or-flight-or, more precisely, just flight- was the only option that made any sense in this case. In his previous life Lorn had researched the Sith thoroughly, and he knew they were fanatics, pure and simple. If a Sith was on their trail, the only prudent thing to do was to put half a galaxy between them and their stalker as quickly as possible.

Nevertheless, he had to admit that I-Five's argument about keeping the holocron had a certain logic. After all, fencing it to the Hurt might be sufficient to throw the Sith off their trail. It was reasonable to assume he was after the holocron, not them.

And all this was based on the assumption that Monchar's killer was in fact a Sith. It was a big galaxy, after all, and Coruscant was the biggest melting pot of all the inhabited worlds. It was possible that there existed someone, neither Jedi nor Sith, who had somehow gotten hold of a lightsaber and could make it work. After all, it probably didn't require being a master of the Force to simply slice an energy blade through someone's neck.

But none of this made Lorn feel any easier. Neither he nor I- Five had managed to survive these past four years in the rancid underbelly of Coruscant by taking chances. As he had told the droid more than once, it wasn't a question of being paranoid, it was a question of being paranoid enough.

Still, there wasn't a whole lot of choice. They could keep the holocron and stay on Coruscant in the hope that giving it up would dissuade Monchar's murderer from beheading them, as well. Or they could sell it and use the credits to flee — and hope they were not pursued.

Neither alternative seemed to offer much in the way of living to a ripe old age.

Lorn sighed and released the droid. "All right," he said. "Let's go meet the Hutt."