Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [9]
He hadn’t known the Lannik well, but he knew enough about him to greatly respect him. It was an amazing testimony to both his courage and the efficacy of the Jedi training that he remained alive, even momentarily, after being in such close proximity to a grenade burst.
“There is no death, there is the Force,” Nick murmured. It was the final mantra of the Jedi Code. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Master Piell’s eyelids flickered open. He focused on Nick’s face. “Rostu?” he croaked. “Is that you?”
Nick blinked in astonishment; he hadn’t expected the other to live more than another minute or two, much less return to consciousness. “Yes, Master Piell. Don’t talk; you need to save your strength. I’ll call a medic, and they’ll fix you right—”
“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” Master Piell snapped weakly. “Move me and I’ll come apart like a holopuzzle. I’m done—we both know it. Someone must take over my mission.” He coughed; it reminded Nick of glass shattering. After a moment, the Jedi continued. “Now pay attention …”
Nick rejoined his comrades, who were waiting for him by the door. He looked around. “The stormtroopers?”
“Got away,” Kars said. “Took the wounded one with ’em.” He didn’t elaborate. Another one of the group, a Nautolan named Lex Rogger, was treating a burn wound on Kars’s arm, so Nick didn’t think pressing the issue right now would do much good. “What about the Jedi?” Kars asked.
Nick sighed and rubbed his face with the back of one hand. “Dead. But,” he continued, looking at them, “he told me about some unfinished business.”
“Which we’re going to finish,” Lex said.
“Actually, no. We’re not. But I know someone who will.”
four
The Hutt was in quite a state. He’d reared his bulk up to its full height, towering over Jax, the boneless mass of his upper section flattened slightly so as to suggest even greater size. It was an atavistic action, Jax knew, an unconscious response to danger from ages past, when Hutts had been both predator and prey. That knowledge didn’t make it any less impressive, however. Rokko seemed to block the width of the arcing footbridge on which the four of them stood—not that it mattered, since the span ended halfway across in a broken and jagged tangle of ferrocrete and duranium rebar. Sometime in the past a cargo vehicle or something similar had gone out of control and smashed into it, most probably. It had never been repaired, which was not at all unusual in the downlevels. Nothing below the haze existed as far as those uplevel were concerned, so why waste credits on repairs?
The Hutt had requested this somewhat precarious spot as a rendezvous point. He hadn’t come alone; flanking him were his two bullyboys, a Klatooinian and a Red Nikto, both looking appropriately menacing. Rokko the Hutt was a powerful sentient, at least in the Blackpit Slums, and he hired the best enforcers available. Jax had never dealt with him before, and it was beginning to look like he never would again. Or anyone else, if he was reading the big slug accurately.
Rokko gave him a bilious glare. “I should have known better than to trust a human.” His voice sounded like gravel pouring down an alumabronze chute. “But you came highly recommended by Braze. It appears I was wrong to trust him—and you.”
“You asked me to deliver Toh Revo Chryyx, a Cerean grifter, to you,” Jax replied. “This I did. The fact that he suicided before you could interrogate him is no fault of mine.” Exactly how the humanoid had stopped his own heart was still a mystery to both the Hutt and Jax, although Jax had heard it rumored that some Cereans had, through much meditation and inner awareness, gained control over their autonomic nervous systems. That didn’t really matter, though. All that mattered was that the Hutt owed Jax fifteen thousand credits and was obviously looking for a way to renege.
“Am