Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [70]
The Force … Rhinann sighed. How he longed to explore its mysteries, to experience firsthand its power and its serenity. But this would never happen, he knew. He would never know what it was like.
He stood, feeling his leg joints crack in protest. He was getting old. He looked around his domicile, at its meticulous neatness and precision. Everything in its place. Nothing out of order; no chaos here.
He wished that he could say the same about his inner world.
His comm unit chimed. Rhinann felt all four stomachs twist simultaneously. He took a deep breath and activated the connection.
The image of an administrative droid appeared on the small screen. “Rhinann, Lord Vader requests your presence immediately.”
The admin droid disconnected, and the comm went dead. Interesting phrase, he thought. And am I next? The possibility seemed more and more viable with each passing moment.
When a comlink or some other form of equipment went dead, the easiest thing to do was just replace it with a new one. Rhinann wasn’t sure how many life-forms there were out there who could do his job as well as he could—or even (horrendous thought!) better—but he knew he wasn’t the only one.
And he knew Vader knew it, too.
twenty-seven
The Far Ranger was a sweet ship, there was no denying that. Nick had checked out the engines during the two-hour flight, and had been impressed with some of the modifications Coven and Mok had made. She boasted an extremely sophisticated sensor sweep array, as well as deflector and defense systems of higher caliber than one would expect on a freighter. The hyper- and sublight drives exceeded standard, and the harmonics on both had been exquisitely tuned.
While en route, he explored the lockers on the flight deck. Most of them were full of the usual paraphernalia used by flight crews: emergency rations, astrogational holomanuals, crew cases, vacuum suits, and the like, as well as some things innate to the smuggling profession: portable jammers and confounders, a weapons cache, and a rather substantial pile of credits. Nick also found something he’d never seen before.
It was a power handle somewhat reminiscent of a lightsaber’s hilt. Nick examined it, making sure that what appeared to be the business end was pointed away from him. The emission aperture was smaller than a lightsaber’s. He thought briefly about turning it on to see what it was, then shook his head at himself for even entertaining such a notion. While he doubted that this thing had the power to punch through a spaceship’s hull, still, one didn’t experiment with strange weapons while in flight.
It looked interesting, however; no doubt part of the plunder of some distant world. Nick slipped it into a pocket.
He was on approach to Yaam Sector Landing Stage 472, a floating platform capable of taking five freighters of the YT class. The voice of the droid flight controller informed him that he’d been cleared for Dock Four.
He disembarked, signing the requisite docking and declaration forms at the ramp’s base. The droid escort showed him a skimmer for rent, and in a few minutes he was dropping toward the street far below.
Vader had given him an easy and sure way to lure Jax into a trap: he had told him where the missing droid could be found. Nick hadn’t fully explored the ramifications of that yet. He and Jax had thought that Vader was hunting for the droid, that the information it carried was, if not a top priority, at least a very high one. But if the Dark Lord knew where it was, and was willing to let its data be compromised just to draw Jax out … that