Windu waited until his colleague was seated before he spoke. "I have not deemed it necessary to call a general meeting of the council concerning this yet," he aid. "Nevertheless, it is a problem that in my opinion warrants discussion."
Yoda nodded. "Of the Black Sun matter you speak."
"Yes-specifically of Oolth the Fondorian, and the Padawan Darsha Assant, who was sent to bring him here."
"Has there been any word at all from her?" Qui-(;on Jinn asked.
"None. It has been almost forty-eight hours. The mission should not have taken more than four or five at the most."
"Anoon Bondara is missing, as well," Yoda said reflectively. "Coincidence I doubt it is."
"You think Bondara has gone in search of Assant?" Windu asked. Yoda nodded.
"Understandable," Jinn said. "Assant is his Padawan. If he felt she was in danger, he would look into it."
"Of course he would," Windu replied. "But why did he not inform any of us as to his intentions? And why has there been no communication from either of them?"
There was silence for a moment as the three Jedi Masters pondered the questions. Then Yoda said, "Some infraction on her part, perhaps he knew or suspected. Want to protect her from repercussions, he would."
Jinn nodded. "Anoon has always been one to chafe at rules and restrictions."
Mace Windu glanced at Jinn and raised an eyebrow. Jinn smiled slightly and shrugged.
"This makes sense to me," Windu said. "It feels right. But, however noble Anoon Bondara's intentions, we cannot have him and Assant acting without the knowledge or consent of the council."
"Agreed we are on this matter," Yoda said. "Send an investigator we must."
"Yes," Windu said. "But who? With the current state of affairs in the Republic Senate, all our senior members are on standby alert, and may continue to be for some time."
"I have a suggestion," Qui-Gon Jinn said. "Dispatch my Padawan. If Black Sun is involved, he will be able to sense it."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi? Potentially strong in the Force he is," Yoda mused. "A good choice he would be."
Mace Windu nodded slowly. Yoda was right. I 'hough not yet a full-fledged Jedi Knight, Kenobi had amply demonstrated his skills in battle and in negotiation. If anyone could find out what had happened to Bondara and Assant, he could.
The senior member of the council stood. "We are decided, then. Qui-Gon, you will explain the situation to Kenobi and send him on his way as soon as possible. There is something about all this…" Windu was silent for a moment.
"Yes," Yoda said soberly. "No accident this was."
Qui-Gon Jinn said nothing; he merely nodded his agreement, then stood. "Obi-Wan will leave for the Crimson Corridor immediately," he told Windu and Yoda.
"May the Force be with him," Yoda said softly.
Chapter 17
There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force.
The Jedi Code was one of the first things Darsha Assant had learned in the Jedi Temple. As a child, she would sit cross- legged on the cold floor for hours at a time, repeating the words over and over, meditating on their meaning, letting that meaning seep into her bones.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
Master Bondara had taught her that this did not mean one should repress one's emotions. "One of the few things that all intelligent species in the galaxy share is the ability to have feelings. We are creatures of emotion, and to deny those emotions is profoundly unhealthy. But one can feel anger, for example, without being controlled by it. One can grieve without being i rippled by grief. The peace of the Force is the foundation upon which the structures of our feelings are built."
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
"Chance," the Twi'lek Jedi had told her, "favors the prepared mind." Certainly the Jedi were among the most prepared in the galaxy as far as that went. She had never seen anyone as awesomely well-educated as Masters Windu, Bondara, Yoda, Jinn, and the many others she had studied under or otherwise come in contact with. She had doubted her ability to hold her own in conversations with them, or even with her fellow Padawans like Obi-Wan and Bant. So she had studied assiduously, almost obsessively, taking advantage of the incredible wealth of wisdom and lore available in the Temple's libraries and data banks. And she had found that the more she knew, the more she wanted to know. Knowledge was as addictive in its own way as glitterstim.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
At first she had thought this was merely a restating of the code's first precept. But Master Bondara had explained the difference. Passion, in this context, meant obsession, compulsion, an overweening fixation on something or someone. And serenity was not merely a synonym for peace; rather, it was the state of tranquility that could be reached when one was able to let go of such fixations, when one could be at peace with one's emotions and had replaced ignorance with knowledge.
Master Bondara had taught her so many things, had helped her forge her life into something far beyond anything she had thought it was her potential and destiny to be. She owed him so much, and now she would never be able to repay him.
There is no death; there is the Force.
Darsha knew that if she had truly internalized the first three maxims of the Jedi Code, she would be able to take comfort from this last one, as well. But it was obvious that she had not reached that stage yet. Because she could find no peace, no serenity, in the knowledge that her mentor was dead.
All she could do was grieve.
She had been in a state of half awareness, her only real emotion that of sorrow, for an unknown amount of time before she was jolted back to consciousness by a building vibration and roar that seemed to be hurtling toward her. She opened her eyes in time to see a huge transport vehicle thunder by, only a meter or so from where she lay. The sound of its passing was deafening; then it was gone, the roar dopplering swiftly away to silence.
Or rather, relative silence; there was an omnipresent background drone of machinery and ventilation equipment. She looked around, saw Lorn Pavan seated against a wall about a meter away, and I-Five standing next to him. They were in a large tunnel, dimly illuminated by photonic wall sconces set at wide intervals.
She realized where they were-in one of the countless service conduits that stitched Coruscant's lowest levels, like the skein of blood vessels under living skin. Through these tunnels flowed an endless automated stream of vehicles hauling goods and materials from spaceports and factories to millions of destinations all over the planetwide metropolis.
"How did we get down here?" she asked. Even as the question left her lips she dimly recalled being dragged from the wreckage of the skycar and down the stairwell by the droid as the craft's power cell exploded. He had undoubtedly saved both of their lives.
Pavan jerked a thumb at I-Five. "Thank Wonder Droid here," he said. "Hadn't been for him, we'd both be hash for the armored rats. Sometimes he's almost worth having around."
"Please, don't gush," the droid said. "It's embarrassing."
Darsha struggled to her feet. The planet skewed nastily on its axis for a moment, and the lights dimmed even more than they already were, but then things steadied again. She checked for her lightsaber and was relieved to find it hanging where it should be from her utility belt.
"Where's the stairwell?" she asked. "I have to see if…" If Master Bondara is still alive, she finished to herself. She could not bring herself to say it out loud, for fear that one of them might tell her what she already knew.
Pavan pointed to an alcove about two meters away. "But the stairwell won't do you any good. The skycar's explosion brought about a ton of real estate down on it. We'll have to find another way out."
Darsha nodded. "Then we'd better get going. There has to be another access stairwell along this route."
"Why not just call for help?" Pavan asked. "You've got a comlink, haven't you?"
"I had one, but it was damaged earlier." It occurred to her only now that she should have replaced it when she had been back at the Temple.
Pavan raised an eyebrow. "First time I've seen a Jedi who wasn't prepared for everything." There was a faint note of sarcasm in his voice.
Darsha bit back the retort that rose to her lips. It wouldn't take much to put him on her list of least favorite people; after all, he was indirectly responsible for Master Bondara's death. On the other hand, he had saved her from falling out of the skycar. "Don't you have a comlink?" she asked.
Pavan looked uncomfortable and didn't reply.
"Yes, he does," I-Five said. "It's in fine working order, too-except that the power pack is depleted and he can't afford to replace it."
Darsha said nothing to that; her silence was ample indication of how she felt.
Pavan stood up. "Might as well get moving," he said, "before another-"
His words were drowned out by the passage of another transport. They shrank back against the curved wall of the tunnel as it hurtled by them. The automated conveyances were sleek, massive bullets that all but filled the shaft, moving in excess of a hundred kilometers an hour, propelled by repulsor drives.
As it disappeared into the distance Darsha said, "Let's hurry. We'll be deaf inside of an hour if we stay here."
They moved quickly, single file, down the narrow sidewalk. It didn't matter which direction they went at this point; the goal was just to get out of the transport tube as fast as possible. The droid led the way, as his photoreceptors were best able to adjust to the dim light.
They saw another recessed doorway ahead as the rumbling approach of a third transport began to build behind them. The door was locked, but I- Five's finger blaster quickly removed that obstacle, and they hurried through it just as the freight vehicle blasted by.
Other than the fact that there were now no convoys thundering past, their new location was not much of an improvement. The transport tube had at least been reasonably clean and lit. Best of all, while it hadn't led back to the surface, it had remained horizontal.
Now, however, they found themselves in another stairwell, only this one led down rather than up. There seemed to be little choice but to follow it. There were no lights; the only illumination came from a phosphorescent lichenlike growth on the walls, and this light was barely enough to let them see each other and the next few steps. The ferrocrete walls wept with a slimy discharge, and there was a faint scent of decay in the air.
At last they reached the bottom of the stairwell, which opened into a small chamber lit by one flickering photonic sconce. In the wall opposite the stairwell were openings to three branching tunnels. Signs mounted above each one supposedly gave directions, but they had been reduced to illegibility by successive layers of graffiti.
"My locator was in my comlink," Darsha said. "I have no idea which way to go."
"Fortunately, I have a built-in global positioner," I-Five said. "To orient ourselves toward the Jedi Temple, we would be best served by taking that one." He pointed to the leftmost tunnel.
"That's a good argument for taking the right-hand tunnel," Pavan muttered. Darsha looked at him; he met her eyes for a moment and then looked away.
"I'm trying to get you back to a safe haven," she told him. "If you'd rather take your chances with our friend up there, that's fine with me. I can tell the council about the impending blockade as easily as you can."
He turned back to look at her again. "Hey, the Sith was probably vaporized along with your Jedi buddy," he said. "And good riddance to both of 'em."
Darsha felt herself go cold with anger. Without taking her gaze away from his, she said, "I-Five, what do you think the chances are that the Sith's dead?"
"Given the fact that, in our brief peripheral acquaintance with him, he has already survived several attempts on his life and killed quite a few beings, as well, I wouldn't count him out until I saw his dead body," the droid said. "And even then I'd want him frozen in carbonite just to make sure."
Darsha nodded. "I agree. But you're entitled to your opinion, Pavan. Maybe it'll be safer if we all go our separate ways; after all, you seem to be the one he's looking for."
Even as she said this, she realized it was a mistake. She didn't need to see the look that passed between the droid and Pavan to know that she couldn't play one off against the other. Whatever bond they had was strong enough to unite them, even in a situation like this.
I-Five said to Pavan, "She's right about you being the primary target. Sanctuary from the Jedi may be your only option. Are you willing to accept that?"
"Of course," Pavan replied with a scowl. "I'm not stupid. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about the situation."
"True," Darsha said. "But you could at least try being congenial. If we're going to be stuck with each other for a while, we might as well try to make it pleasant." She turned to face the left-hand tunnel, took a few steps toward it, then turned back to him and added, "Anoon Bondara died saving your life. I don't want to hear any more disparaging remarks a bout him."
Neither Pavan nor I-Five made any reply to that as she started down the tunnel. After she had taken a few steps they fell in behind her.
There is no emotion; there is peace. Well, maybe someday. After all, she wasn't a full-fledged Jedi yet, and the way things were going, it didn't look like she ever would be. But some truths you didn't need the Force to see. Like the fact that one Anoon Bondara was worth a fleet of Lorn Pavans.
Chapter 18
Lorn didn't like the Jedi Padawan. This fact would hardly be surprising to anyone who knew him even casually-which was how pretty much everybody knew him, these days-as he was not reticent about his feelings when the subject of the Jedi Knights arose. He had stated on more than one occasion to anyone who would listen that he considered them on a par with mynocks in terms of parasitic opportunism, and a notch or two beneath those energy-sucking space bats on the general scale of galactic evolution.
"Shooting's too good for them," he once told I-Five. "In fact, dumping them all in a Sarlacc's pit to marinate in gastric juices for a thousand years is too good for them, but it'll do until something worse comes along."
He had never told anyone why he felt this way. In his present circle of acquaintances only I-Five knew, and the droid would never divulge the secret of Lorn's bitterness to anyone.
And now, thanks to a truly ironic twist of fate, here he was almost literally stun-cuffed to a Jedi and dependent on her to save him from the murderous inten-t ions of a Sith-a member of an order sprung from the Jedi millennia ago. It seemed that, no matter which way he turned, the self-styled galactic guardians were there to complete the ruination of his life that they had started.
Lorn felt the bitterness growing within his breast as he trudged along through the subterranean tunnel following I- Five and Darsha Assant. It certainly hadn't taken her long at all to settle into that sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude that he despised so much. They were all alike, with their sackcloth fashion sense and their austere asceticism, mouthing empty platitudes about the greater good. He much preferred dealing with the street scum; they at least were villains without the taint of hypocrisy.
Lorn was under no illusions about the treatment he would receive when he once again entered the Jedi Temple. Forget about any sort of reward; he and I-Five would be lucky to get protection against the Sith while the council debated how they could best make use of this windfall of information. He had no doubt that they would find a way to make it serve their purposes, as they were able to do with everything they came in contact with.
Everything and everyone.
This underground passage they were traveling was no more dark and torturous than the labyrinth of his memories and hatred. He wondered for the dozenth time why he hadn't just let Assant fall when the speeder bike explosion had hurled her from the skycar. He couldn't even excuse it on the grounds that he had needed her to pilot the vehicle; I-Five was perfectly capable of that.
No, it had been that most pernicious of impulses, one that Lorn thought he'd managed to eradicate within himself long ago: a humanitarian motive.
The memory of what he had done bothered him immensely. He had made it a policy during the last five years to stick his neck out for nobody, with the exception of I-Five. The mordant droid was the closest thing to a friend that he had. What made him such a good friend, in Lorn's opinion, was very simple: he asked for nothing back. Which was good, because Lorn had nothing to give. Everything that had made him human had been taken from him five years ago. In a very real way, he realized, he was no more human than the droid who was his companion.
Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (star wars) Page 13
