Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [78]
It was neither. Kaird opened his eyes, realizing that he’d been unconscious for only a second. He was lying on the lower mezzanine, where Xizor had been. The electrical shock had been a powerful one, but not fatal. A couple of meters away he saw Xizor, similarly stunned and trying to rise.
Kaird felt savage gratitude in his chest. He was not dead, and there was still a chance to emerge the victor from this fight. He tried to lunge toward his enemy, but the shock had left his muscles all a-twitch; the best he could manage was an awkward stagger. He saw that Xizor was in the same condition. Kaird almost laughed. This would be a fight for the ages indeed, the two of them tottering about each other, trying to land a punch.
But before they could get near each other, blue flame erupted again around the edges of his vision, and he gasped in pain as more tetanic spasms rocked him. For a moment he thought that the dangling power cable had swung back and hit him, but then he saw it caught on a railing a good ten meters away.
He blacked out again. When he came to his senses once more, he saw Xizor, less than a meter away, standing now with arms folded, grinning down at him.
What in the name of the Egg was going on?
Kaird looked up at Xizor. Their eyes met, and he knew the Falleen understood the unspoken question. He glanced toward a third figure, standing nearby.
Kaird focused on this new being. That was a misnomer, because the figure was a droid. It looked something like a protocol unit … it was bipedal and humanoid in design. Its chassis was a glossy black, save for the eyes; they were huge and insectile, spreading over much of its upper face, and golden in color. From its temples sprouted two segmented antennae that rose about ten centimeters above its head.
The aspect of its appearance that Kaird was most interested in, however, was the retractable energy cannon that had just emerged from its bay within the droid’s left forearm.
This had to be the droid everyone was chasing. Bug Eyes, or 10-4TO. The droid with the data, who was now aiming the business end of a large and nasty-looking blaster at Kaird.
“Again,” Xizor said.
Kaird blinked. He still wasn’t flying at his usual level. How could Xizor be giving orders to a droid he’d never seen before?
He had little time to wonder about it. Bug-Eyes fired again. A final blue flash burst from its weapon, and carried Kaird away with it, into the night.
thirty
Den and Laranth rendezvoused with I-Five and Pavan at the intersection of Bellus Boulevard and Zyra Street, in the shadow of the gigantic Magra Monad. According to its advertising, Den remembered, the huge habitat was a thousand stories high and completely self-sustaining, an urban arcology independent of any interaction with the rest of Coruscant whatsoever, except for the planet’s gravity. Supposedly some of the more hard-line tenants were even in favor of generating that for themselves. Den wondered what sort of land-usage arrangements they had had with the Republic, and now with the Empire. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Palpatine being sanguine about such a massive piece of urban real estate being occupied by a totally autonomous community, whose members boasted of the fact that whole generations had lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls.
“We’ll have to keep moving,” Pavan told the Twi’lek. “We can’t risk having more local or Imperial forces finding us.”
“We still have no idea where the droid is,” Laranth pointed out. “And it’s going to be harder than ever to find it now, if we have to keep our heads down while we’re looking.”
“If I might ask,” I-Five said, “what droid?”
Pavan ignored his question, which didn’t surprise Den. It was Laranth who answered, explaining Master Even Piell’s last request that they find 10-4TO and the data it was carrying.
I-Five seemed pensive. “Based on your earlier statements, and my own