Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [121]
Jax grinned. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get our reluctant client to the spaceport and on that spice freighter before anyone else shows up wanting to play.” He raised his voice. “Den! Secretary Bura’lya! Let’s go!”
There was a moment of silence, and then Den’s voice came from around the corner of the hypercondenser: “I’m afraid that might be a problem.”
Jax felt himself go cold. Had they come this far, only to have the being to whom they’d promised safe passage die at the last minute? Had a stray energy bolt ricocheted from a reflective surface somewhere in the room at just the right angle to kill the undersecretary? Jax reached out with the Force, just as Den continued, “Bura’lya’s fainted. And—” The Sullustan peered around from behind the unit, his nose wrinkled. “I think he’s had an … accident.”
I-Five said, “My olfactory sensor confirms that Den is correct—assuming that had an accident in this case is a euphemism for—”
“It is,” Jax said. He sheathed his useless vibrosword and sighed. “Come on. Let’s get him cleaned up before we put him on board.”
two
There were no further impediments in getting Undersecretary Bura’lya on board the freighter Big Score, unless finding a new set of pantaloons in the spaceport duty-free that fit a Bothan counted as such. Once the ship had lifted, and I-Five’s illegal patch into the orbital grid feed had confirmed its slot for hyperspace insertion, the four headed back to their current quarters, in the downlevels sector known as the Southern Underground. This was several thousand kilometers from Jax’s previous neighborhood, the Blackpit Slums, near the equator and not far from the ruins of the Jedi Temple.
Their living quarters were, for a change, relatively upscale, which meant, as far as Den was concerned, that the roof didn’t leak and slugthrower fire hadn’t riddled the walls. Lately. As a result of the unexpected generosity of Kaird of Nedij, the former Black Sun assassin who, thanks to Jax, had been able to exit the criminal organization and return to his homeworld, they had enough credits to live comfortably for a while. Unfortunately, the same plan that had aided Kaird and saved the lives of himself and his friends had cost Jax his lightsaber. He had used it to trigger a small-scale nuclear explosion in the deserted Factory District in order to escape the clutches of both Darth Vader and the Falleen Prince Xizor. It seemed to have worked; several months had gone by, and Jax had felt no untoward “plucking” of the psionic threads that constituted the way he experienced the Force—at least, nothing that carried with it the sense of Vader’s renewed attention. The Sith Lord evidently had assumed that Jax and his companions had not escaped the blast.
“It’s not like you really need another lightsaber,” Den pointed out. “After all, there’s no surer way of saying Look, I’m a Jedi! than to go waving one around.
“Besides,” he added, “don’t you still have that other gizmo that Nick Rostu gave you?”
The “other gizmo” was an energy whip: a length of flexible, conductive metal that could be charged with a plasmatic field, which Jax had used in his battle with Prince Xizor. Ironically, the Black Sun operative had been wielding Jax’s own lightsaber against him—and not too shabbily, either, Den remembered, considering that Xizor didn’t have the help of the Force with it.
“The lightwhip? Yes,” Jax replied. “But it’s not very good for close work, or multiple opponents.”
“Even so,” Laranth said, “I agree with Den. A new lightsaber will just tempt you into more overt demonstrations of the Force. If you want Vader to know you’re alive, then by all means find another one.”
The green-skinned Twi’lek was standing by the partly opaqued window, looking down at the street below, as she spoke. She was dressed mostly in gray: leggings, tunic, and vest. This wasn’t surprising, since Laranth Tarak was one of the few surviving members of the Gray Paladins, a