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He had to face it: either he delivered Jax to Darth Vader, now—or he accepted and lived with the genocidal consequences.

The Dark Lord had told him he was not to attempt capturing the Jedi alone. He’d given him a comm device that was keyed into a special signal; all Nick had to do was activate it, and Vader would be alerted instantly. The device was a piece of smart fabric woven into his clothes, undetectable by any regulation scanning device. It was designed to recognize his DNA; a slight squeeze of the material between thumb and forefinger would be all that was necessary. Vader would know that Nick had found Jax Pavan, and the subcutaneous tracker would then lead him unerringly straight here.

Nick fingered the section of fabric lightly. Then he turned and, while everyone else was focused on the discussion, slipped quietly into the shadows and through a door.

Once he was out of their sight, he started walking swiftly. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but it wouldn’t be far. He just needed to be out of Jax’s immediate vicinity, both to lessen the possibility of Jax sensing trouble, and because he knew he couldn’t betray his friend while in the same room with him.

He wouldn’t go far. He was aware that there could be various toothy dangers lurking in the shadows, but, even though he had only a nodding acquaintance with the Force, he still trusted it, and his hard-won battle skills and reflexes, to protect him long enough to do what he had to do. And if he was wrong—if something big enough and fast enough to turn him into a hot lunch before he could react came out of the dark … well, right now it was hard to see the downside to that scenario.

Kaird stared in disbelief. The Underlord of Black Sun was the last person he’d expected to see in a run-down, abandoned droid-manufacturing plant in the Factory District. But it was him, there was no disputing that. Kaird was standing less than two meters away, and he was quite familiar with disguises, bodysuits, and the like. He could spot someone so camouflaged far more easily than most could.

“Underlord Perhi,” he said, grateful that he didn’t stammer, at least. “Why are you here?”

Perhi scowled at him. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to clean up the mess you’ve made of things. Prince Xizor informed me of the situation, and I came immediately.”

Situation? What situation? Kaird was utterly confused. He was about to attempt a response when he noticed something very odd.

Kaird could see deeper into both the near infrared and ultraviolet than most species. He could see the heat waves that Perhi’s body was shedding, and abruptly realized that they were cycling to extreme degrees between hot and cold. This was inexplicable. Perhi was standing still, and he obviously hadn’t undertaken any strenuous activity or exercise recently; his respiration was normal for a human, and he wasn’t sweating. Yet his skin temperature was rising and falling rhythmically, within the span of a single breath. Kaird estimated the cycle to be as much as fifteen degrees.

He walked over to Perhi and grabbed the human’s upper arm to make sure, having to extend both forcecuffed hands to do so. No, it wasn’t his imagination—he could feel the skin temperature rising and falling. This simply wasn’t possible. There was no way Perhi could be standing there, conversing with him, if his internal thermostat was fluctuating to such peaks and valleys—

Kaird abruptly understood.

“Perhi” jerked his arm free of Kaird’s grasp indignantly. “What are you doing? I’ll have you—”

The thing imitating the Underlord suddenly stopped speaking. It shivered, then abruptly threw its head back, stiffening in an arc of agony. Kaird watched in horror as the simulacrum melted—its flesh blackened and shrank, then ran in a disgusting putrescence. Eyes and teeth, and a framework of metallic bones, gleamed for a moment in the dark foulness before dissolving as well, sloughing over organs that seemed part viscera and part electronics. A moment later, all that was left of the thing that had looked like Underlord Dal Perhi was a pool of black