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Their modest garments only made their obvious guile all the more mysterious.

The fraudulent cargo pod lacked viewports of any sort, but vidcams concealed in the hull transmitted assorted views of the hangar to display screens inside the craft.

On observing the disorder Cohl’s band had left in its wake, the young man in the forward seat remarked in a nasal voice, “Captain Cohl has left us an easy trail to follow, Master.”

“He has indeed, Padawan. But the trail you take into the forest may not be the one you wish to follow when leaving. Stretch out with your feelings, Obi-Wan.”

Fairly squeezed into the aft seat, the older man was also the larger of the pair. His broad face was fully bearded, and his thick mane of graying hair was pulled back from a gently sloping, noble brow. His eyes were a sharp blue, and the bridge of his strong nose was flattened, as if it had been broken beyond the repair of bacta treatments.

His name was Qui-Gon Jinn.

His counterpart at the controls of the pod, Obi-Wan Kenobi, had a youthful, clean-shaven face, a cleft chin, and a high, straight forehead. His brown hair was cropped short, save for a short tail at the rear of his head, and a single, thin plait that fell behind his ear to his right shoulder, a sign of his Padawan rank. Peculiar to the order to which Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan belonged, the word meant apprentice or protégé.

That order was known as the Jedi Knights.

“Master, do you see any sign of their craft?” Obi-Wan asked over his shoulder.

Qui-Gon turned in his seat to indicate an open pod at the lower left of Obi-Wan’s heads-up display screen.

“That one. They must be planning to launch from the inner rim hangar portal. Set us down nearby, with our hatch facing away from their pod. But be mindful not to draw attention. Cohl is sure to have posted sentries.”

“Would you like to assume the piloting, Master?” Obi-Wan asked peevishly.

Qui-Gon smiled to himself. “Only if you’re tiring, Padawan.”

Obi-Wan compressed his lips. “I’m anything but tired, Master.” He regarded the display screen for a moment. “I’ve found us a good place.”

As if under the guidance of droids in the hangar traffic stations, the pod settled on its quartet of disk-shaped landing gear. The two Jedi fell silent while they watched the vidcam feeds. After a long moment, a pair of human males emerged from Cohl’s pod, oxygen masks covering their faces and disruptor rifles cradled in their arms.

“You were right, Master,” Obi-Wan said softly. “Cohl is becoming predictable.”

“We can hope, Obi-Wan.”

One of the sentries circled the pod, then returned to the open hatch, where the other was waiting.

“Now’s our chance,” Qui-Gon said. “You know—”

“I know what to do, Master. But I still don’t understand your reasoning. We could surprise Cohl here and now.”

“It’s more important that we discover the location of the Nebula Front’s base, Padawan. There’ll be time then to put an end to Captain Cohl’s exploits.”

Qui-Gon inserted a small breathing device into his mouth and flipped a switch that opened the circular front hatch. A cacophony of skirling sirens greeted them. The two Jedi climbed out into the red glow of emergency lighting that suffused the hold.

No object was more symbolic of the Jedi Knights than the polished alloy cylinders Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan wore on the hide belts that cinched their tunics. With the belts’ abundance of utility pouches, the thirty-centimeter-long cylinders might have been tools of a sort—and, indeed, the Jedi viewed them as such—but, in fact, they were weapons of light, actual and figurative, and had been employed by the Jedi for thousands of generations in their self-appointed mandate to serve the Galactic Republic as the stewards of peace and justice.

The crystal-focused lightsaber, however, was not the true source of a Jedi’s power, for that sprang from the omnipresent energy field that permeated all life and bound the galaxy together, an energy field the Jedi knew as the Force.

Tens of thousands of years the order had devoted