“No,” he murmured. “No, they’re alive. I would have known it if she … if they were killed. There would be an echo of their life forces. I felt something, but didn’t know what it was. I think they were drugged. Spice gas. I woke up just now tasting it.”
“That, at least, is good news. They were late getting here so we sent out search teams. We’d never have even realized what had happened to them or where if one of our teams hadn’t found this.” He reached to one side, and a hand laid something in his. It was the taozin ward Kaj had been wearing. The woven chain was broken.
Jax felt as if a metal band were being ratcheted tightly around his chest. He forced his mind to prioritize its thoughts, not according to his personal dictates, but according to the greater good. “Do you think you’re in danger of being discovered?”
“The ambush point was some distance from here—in fact, Laranth and Kaj had barely entered the tunnels and might have taken any number of different routes once they got past this particular juncture. I think the ambush was set up by someone with only a cursory knowledge of our routes of access.”
I-Five made a strange sound. “Set up by whom? Only a handful of people knew who Kaj was and that he was being moved today. Only Whiplash operatives, as you point out, know your routes.”
“Yes. Which leads to the unhappy conclusion that the person or persons who arranged this are in Whiplash confidence, but only up to a point.”
The thought sent Jax’s mind reeling. “Someone like Pol Haus?”
“I would not believe it of him,” Yimmon said. “Or perhaps I would merely not want to believe it of him. He is an old and trusted friend.”
“May I remind you,” I-Five said, “that Pol Haus knows about the art gallery. If he had wanted, he could have given up the entire organization.”
Another possibility occurred to Jax that was chillingly reasonable. “Unless all he wanted or needed to do was pacify Vader, which was pretty high on his priority list if you’ll recall. He may not be allied with the Empire, but just trying to keep the peace. In fact, he might have reasoned that giving up the ‘rogue adept’ was the best way to protect the Whiplash from discovery. He may very well have seen Kaj’s presence there as a threat to his old and trusted friend.”
As Yimmon digested that, Dejah stepped onto the holoprojector pad at his end of the transmission. “Jax, Yimmon has told me that some Jedi possess the power of psychometry. Do you?”
“I have some ability. I’ve rarely used it.”
The Zeltron lifted the taozin ward from Yimmon’s hands and held it out. “Would you be willing to try? Even I can sense something about this necklace. Some … emotional resonance from it. Maybe you could divine more.”
Jax nodded. “We’ll come at once.”
Yimmon agreed immediately. “We’ll send runners to all the access points on the outer perimeter. You choose which one you use. Right now that’s the only way to make sure there won’t be another ambush.”
With those chilling words, Thi Xon Yimmon ended his transmission.
Rhinann lifted his arms in a gesture of dismay. “We’ll come at once? May I remind you—”
Jax was already on his way to the lift. “I-Five and I will go. You contact Sal. Let him know what’s happened. Tell him … tell him things have changed. Our assassination plot just became a rescue operation.”
twenty-four
Kaj woke from a nightmare to find himself lying in an elegant yet spartan room. His head hurt, his vision was blurred, and he had no memory of coming here.
Cold panic shot through him then, from top to bottom. He had no memory of anything, beyond his name. He was Kajin Savaros. Beyond that, his past was a void.
He looked around the room. The walls were soft, deep blue-gray, the sparse furniture black.
He listened to the room. It was not completely silent, but breathed gently with the slow, regular influx and outflow of filtered air. There was a pleasant scent in it that reminded him of …
He racked his brain. Water. It reminded him of water, flowers, and the green scent of home. But where was home?
Was this home?
He sat up, his head throbbing, and swung his legs off the couch. The fabric of it was soft beneath his fingers. He dug his fingertips into it, trying to concentrate.
Nothing came.
Maybe that was the wrong thing to do. Someone had told him once that when you wanted to remember something, you should take your mind off remembering.
He couldn’t even remember who’d told him that.
Panic clotted in his throat, making it hurt, making his eyes sting with tears.
Stop it, he told himself. This is silly. You’re in this nice place. Someone put you here. You’re not hungry, so you’ve been well fed. Someone is taking care of you. You’re okay.
He had a sudden, blinding recollection of cadging food from kiosks in a dingy marketplace. It was gone as swiftly as it had come.
He got to his feet with care, wobbling a little as he moved toward the door. It did not open at his approach. Was he a prisoner?
He glanced to either side, looking for a control plate. It was on the right: a gleaming octagon of metal set flush with the wall. He waved his hand over it, and the door slid back with a sigh.
He gasped aloud at the beauty of the room beyond the door. It was large, elegant, and decorated in the same shade of blue-gray as the bedchamber. Paintings and sculptures decorated it. The wall he faced was a curving panel of transparisteel that looked out on all the splendor of the city.
The City.
He searched for a name. Imperial Center. He was in Imperial Center. He still had no idea of who he was, beyond his name, but being this high up, in a building whose windows looked out upon gleaming spires, soft white clouds, and golden sky, he must be someone of importance.
There was a soft rush of air and a door opened to his right. A man stepped through it; a tall, thin human, with a bald head and a face covered with pale scar tissue. Kajin held his breath on a stab of recognition. He knew this man, but could not remember how he knew him.
The man hesitated in the doorway a moment, as if taken aback by the sight of Kaj, then smiled. “You’re awake. I’m pleased.”
“Was I … was I asleep long?”
“I’m afraid so. Over a day. We were worried about you.”
“Why? What happened to me? I don’t remember.”
The man’s eyes were sad. “That’s probably for the best. You’ve had quite an ordeal.”
Kajin swallowed. “What ordeal? What happened to me?”
“The Jedi tried to capture you. They nearly succeeded, too. They had spirited you away underground when we caught up with them.”
Darkness. Running back and forth in darkness with the walls closing in. A woman. A greenskinned Twi’lek. “No, you can’t,” she’d said. She’d stopped him from doing … something.
He rubbed at his temples. “There was a woman. A Twi’lek.”
The man’s eyes were chill. “Yes. She was one of them. A Jedi. Don’t you remember?”
“I-I told you—I don’t remember anything.”
Running. Fear. Wanting to do something—what was it?
“I seem angry to you, do I?” She’d asked him that. Why would she ask him that?
He was angry now. Frustrated.
The man in the doorway held his hands out in a placating gesture. “Please, Kajin. Don’t upset yourself. The Jedi drugged you. It may take some time for your memory to return.”
“Who are you?”
The pale gaze flickered as if in disappointment. “I’m Probus Tesla. Your teacher.”
“My teacher.” He had had a teacher. He remembered vaguely. A gentle voice prompting him, encouraging him. The soft touch of another mind …
There is no emotion; there is peace.
No face came with the memory. He gazed at the bald man. “Then who am I?”
The smile was back, warm and comforting. “You, Kajin, are one of the most promising i
nitiates of the Inquisitorius. Which is why the Jedi sought to capture you.”
The Inquisitorius.
The ripple of iridescent robes. The flash of a crimson lightsaber.
“Sith,” the boy said. “I’m a Sith.”
His teacher’s smile broadened. “Good. You do remember.”
twenty-five
The Inquisitor stepped out into the skyway that terminated in the plaza in front of the Imperial Security Bureau and strode with studied confidence along its length. The personnel who passed him tilted their heads in deference to his apparent station and moved on. Not one of them raised their eyes to try to see his face within the obscuring cowl. Apparently even Imperial operatives were so awed by the Inquisitors that they averted their gaze.
This was a plus.
Jax’s goal was twofold—to see how well his disguise worked with no one else’s life on the line, and to see if proximity allowed him to sense Kaj.
Laranth he’d had no trouble sensing, though the nature of her contact had been disturbing in the extreme. It had come in a burst of mingled defiance and pain and had left him shaken to the core. He suspected she had been provoked into the brief contact; her captor wanted him to know where she was.
She was there. In that obsidian monolith across the golden surface of the plaza. Jax could see his own reflection in the front of the building as he crossed the plaza—or rather he could see the reflection of a tall, slender Inquisitor moving with cloud-like grace; one among several passing to and fro.
He watched as a pair of them, their robes coiling like sanguinary smoke about them, giving them the appearance of crimson ghosts, entered the broad doorway of the ISB. The bureau had become a home away from home for their order—the offices of the Inquisitorius were here, but the order itself was centered in a temple several kilometers away.
The two Inquisitors he watched entered the building without any sort of security check. Jax slowed his pace. Could it be that easy? He thought of Laranth—of that frantic burst of pain and desperation he had felt through the Force—and experienced the urgent desire to walk straight through those doors, find her, and take her out—now. The knowledge that she was in there and had been tortured with enough force to break that iron will, even for a moment, was agonizing.
He swept the place with tendrils of Force. He found Laranth amid the weird, dead echoes from the taozin wards worn by roughly a dozen Inquisitors. It was a tangled presence, its threads looped and knotted, but it was there. She was there.
Of Kaj Savaros, however, there was no sign.
Jax moved slowly along the front of the building to a lift on the far corner, scanning as he went. Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Then, abruptly, his regard slipped past another signature of coiled strength. Dark strength—as black and hard and gleaming as this edifice.
Vader.
He withdrew his touch gently and took the lift down several levels before making his circuitous way back to the Whiplash.
“What does it mean?” Tuden Sal glanced at the others in the room—Jax, I-Five, Rhinann, Dejah, and Thi Xon Yimmon. His gaze lingered on Jax.
“It means we can’t go through with the assassination attempt,” Jax said. “If we assassinate the Emperor, we would lose any chance of ever getting Laranth and Kaj back alive.”
“You’re sure they’re alive now?”
Jax fingered the hilt of his lightsaber and found it comforting. What would Laranth say about that? He hoped he’d get to find out. “I can sense Laranth, but not Kaj. Which means one of three things: Kaj is drugged, he’s dead, or he’s not in the ISB detention center.”
Dejah put her hands to her mouth. “You don’t think he’s dead?”
Jax shook his head. “As I said before, I would have felt that. And it makes no sense for Vader to take him just to kill him. He’s too much of an anomaly for that—too potentially useful to him. They’d want to turn him to the dark side. I also don’t think he’s still drugged. Vader’s no fool; he knows that long-term deep sedation can wreak havoc with the Force in an adept.”
“Then what are the alternatives?” asked Thi Xon Yimmon.
“I think they’re keeping him somewhere else and that they’ve found some way to damp down his powers.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said I-Five, “but this would seem to put paid to our idea of a rescue mission.”
“Pretty much.”
“I don’t understand,” said Dejah, frowning. “Why would that be?”
“They aren’t together,” Jax explained. “We could go in to get Laranth, but I’m pretty sure we won’t find Kaj in the same place.”
Dejah made a frustrated gesture. “But surely, even if we can only rescue Laranth, it’s worth the risk?”
Jax threw the Zeltron a sideways glance. “I hadn’t thought you cared all that much for Laranth.”
“You’ve got it backward—she doesn’t care much for me. I’m fine with her, although I find her a bit grim. But you … you care for her. That’s enough reason for me to want to get her back.”
Jax shook his head, partly in negation of the words, partly in negation of the manipulative wash of pheromones that came with them. “We can’t just barge in after her. She …” He pressed his lips together, shoving the agony of her last touch away. “I think they’re using her as a beacon. Trying to get us to go in after her. I can get into the building as an Inquisitor, but I’d never convince anyone I had the authority to remove the prisoner. If they were just stormtroopers guarding her, that’d be different. But they’re Inquisitors.”
I-Five said, “You’re saying they’re using her as bait. Not Kaj. Interesting.”
“Bait,” repeated Rhinann. “For the rest of us.”
“Well, more specifically, for Jax and me.” I-Five looked at the Jedi. “And perhaps of the two of us, Darth Vader would be most interested in me—if not for what I am, then most certainly for what he thinks I have. I think we should suggest a trade: me for Laranth and the boy.”
There was dead silence in the room. Jax finally found his voice. “That’s insane.”
“I think not. Nor am I suggesting that we actually give me over to Vader. My thought is that with your disguise—which apparently works admirably—we might enter under false pretenses.”
“Enter where?” asked Yimmon. “You can’t be proposing to go into the ISB.”
“If Vader wants me—and the bota, of course—we may have some control over the exchange point.”
“Even so,” Yimmon argued, “Vader can’t be trusted to keep to a bargain. It would be a trap.”
“Of course,” I-Five acknowledged. “That’s to be expected. We’d consider that in our plans.”
Tuden Sal looked as if he had swallowed something particularly sour. “And may we include in those plans some way of getting the Emperor to the exchange point?”
Jax opened his mouth to say something terse about the new goal of their mission, but I-Five spoke first, his gaze on the Sakiyan.
“I fully expect that the lure of the bota will do that. Consider that, when it comes to that rare and mysterious substance, Palpatine and Vader may find themselves in competition. I would think the Emperor would be adamant about being in on the exchange to be certain the bota falls into his hands, not his lieutenant’s.”
The Sakiyan snorted. “If, indeed, he even knows about it.”
“I can make certain that he does,” said Rhinann quietly.
“And can you get through to Vader and make our proposal?” Jax asked him.
The Elomin nodded. “Yes. It may be my complete undoing, but I’ll manage it.”
“Use the HoloNet system back at the studio. That way, if they trace you …”
“I had that in mind.”
Jax found himself wondering what else the Elomin might have in mind. He was, after all, a former associate of Darth Vader’s—his amanuensis and adjutant. Jax was not completely on board with the idea that their mole was Pol Haus. Haninum Tyk Rhinann was also a possible c
andidate.
It was with that unsettling possibility in mind that, once the group drew up the exchange proposal for Darth Vader and sent Rhinann off to deliver it, Jax took I-Five aside for a private strategy session.
In the end, the idea of the exchange was accepted and the conditions discussed. The very first condition was that the arrangements be finalized by Jax himself, via the HoloNet. Rhinann, saying he feared some sort of trickery on Vader’s part, removed Ves Volette’s floating HoloNet station from the gallery to an abandoned conapt in a neighboring sector. It was from that anonymous location that Jax now stood, face-to-holographic-mask, with the Dark Lord.
Even as a hologram Darth Vader managed to project an aura—a presence—of towering darkness. The effect was even more pronounced when he spoke.
His words were brief and to the point. “Jax Pavan. You have what I want.”
“The feeling—and the situation—is mutual,” Jax replied. “Laranth Tarak …”
“Is here.” Vader stepped to one side with a sweep of his robed arm. A light went on behind him, and the holoprojection expanded to show the Twi’lek huddled in a small, doorless holding cell, her hands bound in electromagnetic force shackles. Her lekku, Jax saw, were encircled with some sort of flexible metal bands along which tiny ribbons of light raced. He’d never seen anything like them before, but he could guess their purpose. He fought a tide of nausea and schooled his face and his racing heart to calm.
There is no emotion …
Laranth almost undid him when she looked up at his holographic image, her eyes dull and unfocused. He clenched his fists, fingernails biting into his palms. The pain was good. Centering.
There is no emotion …
“If you’ve harmed her …”
“Spare me your empty threats, Pavan. She is merely restrained by the fruits of the Imperial research program. Twi’leks, it seems, make use of their lekku for a number of Force-related activities. When the bands come off she will be as she was.”
Jax tore his gaze from Laranth and straightened his shoulders. “Your conditions?”
Star Wars: Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force Page 23
