Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [36]
He was standing on a slidewalk that carried him and a number of other pedestrians along a bridge five stories above the street. He stepped toward the edge; the anisotropic surface slowed for him and let him step off onto an outdoor mezzanine.
As long as he kept a low profile, restricting his use of the Force to following the threads, and even that to no great degree; as long as he remained passive, letting the Force guide him, or at most only pushing a little—he felt he was reasonably safe from detection. Even if Vader was looking for him in particular, tracking him down could hardly be the first item on the Dark Lord’s to-do list. He was, after all, occupied with the big picture. Being the Emperor’s instrument was a full-time job. It was a large galaxy; there were still lots of worlds to conquer and dominate, still many species to enslave or wipe out … compared with all that, a rank-and-file Jedi such as Jax Pavan couldn’t possibly be a big priority.
Or could he?
Jax moistened dry lips and looked around. Flitters and skimmers passed overhead in more or less ragged formation about ten meters over his head; the hum of their repulsor drives, along with the incessant conversations going on, all blended into a background white noise. The foot traffic was the usual heterogeneous cavalcade: Duros, Toydarians, Mon Calamari, Twi’leks … and, of course, humans like himself. All with somewhere to go, rushing hither and yon, hustling, hoping, their eyes—the ones that had eyes—shining in desperation.
The underdwellers.
And, for better or worse, he was one of them.
Jax smelled the spicy tang of roasting meat from a nearby vendor’s grill, and realized suddenly that he was ravenous. He bought a strip of meat on a stick. This far above the street, it stood a pretty good chance of actually being hawk-bat, as the vendor claimed, instead of armored rat or something even less appetizing. It was hard to tell by the taste, because it was so heavily spiced.
It didn’t matter. He ate it, chewing on its gristly toughness until his jaws ached.
He wondered why he hadn’t followed Master Piell’s advice and changed his name. After all, he had taken the precaution of having his records erased from the data banks by a slicer, so why not go the rest of the way?
The biggest reason was that it wouldn’t matter to Darth Vader; he would know a Jedi for what he was, no matter what alias the latter assumed. But, while this was true as far as Vader was concerned, a name change could help to throw off any troopers who might get too close. Again, Jax couldn’t see that it made any difference. There were millions of humans with the same name as his, scattered over Coruscant; it would take decades to investigate them all. And there was nothing now to link this particular Jax Pavan to the Jedi, any more than any of the others.
Valid as all these reasons might be, though, in the final analysis they were all meaningless. What it really all came down to was very simple. The Emperor and Vader had taken everything else away from him: his friends, his home, his very way of life. He’d even been curtailed in his use of the Force. His name was all he had left, and he was not going to surrender that as well.
Jax got back on the slidewalk and let it carry him along, just another face in the crowd. He tried to put the thoughts of hopelessness, of despair—of suicide—from his mind. He at least had a purpose now. He had been tasked to fulfill Master Piell’s dying request: to find the droid 10-4TO, aka Bug-Eyes. Nick Rostu had offered to go with him, but Jax had told him this was something he had to do alone. Rostu understood that. A Jedi’s last request was as sacred to his Order as a blood oath was to a Korunnai.
He straightened his shoulders, feeling rejuvenated. For a short time,