Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [122]
Of course, Den mused, she obviously used the Force to warn her of lasers or particle beam blasts that were about to be fired at her. No one was fast enough to block something traveling at or near lightspeed. But Den was pretty sure that, if one could somehow turn off Laranth’s access to the Force, it wouldn’t affect her speed and accuracy all that much.
The Twi’lek turned her head slightly, and Den could see light reflect off the shiny scar tissue on her right cheek. That and the burned stub of her left lekku were souvenirs of the atrocity known as Flame Night. As a reporter, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking once about her part in it. “And don’t tell me I should see the other guy,” he’d cautioned.
“You can’t,” she’d replied, “unless you dig up his grave.”
She didn’t smile as she said it, but then, neither Den nor anyone else in the small group could recall seeing Laranth ever smile. There was no question in Den’s mind but that the Twi’lek’s nerves were wound tighter than the carbonite nanofibers that tethered skyhooks to the surface of Coruscant. He was glad she was on their side. He hoped she’d stay there. He’d hate to be facing the business end of her blaster.
There was only one other member of the group who could probably match the Paladin’s deadly accuracy: I-Five. As others remarked more than once, the erstwhile protocol droid, who had been Den’s friend and companion since the Battle of Drongar—and who had dragged him halfway across the galaxy to Coruscant and this current thrill-a-minute existence, he reminded himself wryly—was a rather singular droid. The word unique had even been applied. The reason for this was as simple as it was complicated: I-Five was more self-aware than any other droid that Den had ever encountered, not to mention a sizable chunk of sentients it had been the reporter’s misfortune to come across over the years. This could be partly explained by some of the modifications that Jax’s father, Lorn, had made in the droid’s synaptic grid and creativity dampeners. But Den and the others couldn’t help but feel that the droid was somehow journeying beyond even that, toward a consciousness that couldn’t be entirely the result of programming. If he wasn’t already there.
Den shook his head. He’d been slipping more and more into such esoteric reveries these days. It wasn’t a good frame of mind to stay in, especially since a large part of his current existence consisted of trying to smuggle various contraband and fugitives from the streets to the spaceports and eventually offworld. One had to be alert; one had to live in the moment and take care of business in such an environment. Philosophical musings could rarely be indulged.
Not that he was given overly much to such things anyway. In his former life—which was how he often found himself thinking of it these days; it seemed as misty and faraway as a half-remembered dream—he’d been a reporter. A newsbeing who had worked on some hot stories in his time, covered some dangerous fronts, been more than once in “humpty deep poodoo,” as some of the Ugnaughts who’d been his source for juicy newsbits back on Drongar had so colorfully put it. Drongar had by no means been the best of them, but it hadn’t been the worst, either. He’d covered the Clone Wars from Eredenn Prime to Jabiim. He’d won awards, citations, and scrolls of merit for his stories from the front. It had been hard work, dangerous work, exciting work.
These days, the memories of those times seemed like a pleasant walk in Oa Park.
Den was jarred