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Xizor stood over him, cool and calm, and said, “We’ll take your ship. I came down in a shuttle, but I’ve always fancied that vessel of yours. Very nice lines.”

Kaird glared at him, seething with rage and fury, but still unable to so much as twitch a muscle. On top of all the other indignities he’d been forced to suffer in the last hour, now the reptile man was going to steal the Stinger? This was an outrage! The modified Surronian Conqueror assault ship had a cluster of top-of-the-line sublight ion drives and a Class One hyperdrive, not to mention two fire-linked ion cannons. It was one of his most prized possessions. He would not lose it to Xizor. After all, he’d stolen it first.

Prince Xizor rattled off the proper docking code to the tower; how he’d gotten it, Kaird had no idea, though he suspected slicing into personal databases might have had something to do with it. They transferred from the skimmer into the sleek vessel and were airborne ten minutes later, Xizor having claimed royal privilege to bypass the launch queue.

By then, the uncomfortable sensations of paresthesia were occupying Kaird. Strapped into his seat, he tried not to writhe in discomfort as the nerve paralysis caused by the stun blasts wore off. Within a few minutes, the Stinger eased into low planetary orbit.

Xizor, in the pilot’s seat, ran his hands over the recessed bank of controls. From where he was sitting, Kaird could hear the muted pinging of the threshold monitors and level indicators, and see the pulsing color bar graphs, VU meters, and LED status lights. “Quite a ship,” Xizor said in a satisfied tone. “You have taste, Kaird.”

The Nediji did not reply. In the seat beside him, the droid 10-4TO sat ramrod-straight. Beyond it, through the vessel’s view-port, Kaird could see the untwinkling stars and the cresting arc of the planet below. He stared out at the infinite. Somewhere out there was the planet of his birth. Was this the closest he would ever get to it?

Nearly an hour passed. Kaird’s circulation had returned to normal long ago. He tested his bonds again, even though he knew it was futile. He gave up; perhaps he would get a chance to escape once Xizor reached his destination …

Come to think of it, just what was the Falleen’s destination?

Kaird had assumed that Xizor would be heading back to Sinharan T’sau and the hidden labyrinth of Midnight Hall. But now that he thought about it, that didn’t make any sense. Xizor must have figured out why Kaird had been stalking him, and his questions earlier proved that the probability of this being an official assignment had already occurred to him. After all, the Nediji wouldn’t attempt such a bold move as assassinating a Falleen prince without being sanctioned to do so by the Underlord. Knowing that, for Xizor to deliberately put himself back in harm’s way would be foolish, to say the least. Obviously, then, he had another destination.

But where?

Even as he was wondering, Kaird heard the slight change in the purr of the engines, and saw the starscape outside shift in response. They were leaving orbit. He craned his neck, saw the bright curvature of golden, scintillating light that was Coruscant, and the approaching terminator line. They were going into the night.

A few minutes later, he realized Xizor’s destination: the Antipodes. The area of the globe diametrically opposite to Imperial City.

The area known as the Factory District.

A chill ran the down on his arms and neck. The Factory District was, according to all accounts, one of the most dangerous places on the entire planet. Centuries ago, it had been a thriving industrial center that sprawled over most of the northeastern quadrisphere, near the equator. But economic downturns and the streamlining of production techniques on Metellos, Brentaal, Duro, and other Core worlds, together with the lifting of trade sanctions and political lobbying in the Galactic Senate, had resulted in most of the manufacturing and engineering contracts being moved offworld. As a result, except for isolated areas where automated minimal production of some