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The best option for him and his friends was to figure out who killed the sculptor and present Haus with that information before the police came across something embarrassing or illegal, and there was plenty of both for them to find. Jax knew that a truth-scan required more than just suspicion of irregularity, which was why Haus hadn’t ordered one on the spot. Also, the cools were not supposed to ask questions during a scan that touched on activities outside the direct scope of the crime under investigation. But such rules were seldom strictly enforced, particularly downlevel, and it wouldn’t be the first time the authorities dug a bit deeper than allowed just to see what was there. A truth-scan would prove that neither he nor Dejah had killed the sculptor, but there were plenty of other things Jax did not want brought to light.

The Force could keep such things hidden, but if they pushed a scan too hard, he might suffer memory damage, or worse. A Jedi Master could resist a truth-scan in his sleep, but Jax knew his abilities did not begin to approach such a degree of control.

In short, the sooner the cools wrapped this up and went on to other crimes, the better for Jax and company. If Haus and his men didn’t find the killer immediately, then Jax had better do so. Otherwise he and Laranth and the others would have the police in their hair until doomsday.

Aurra Sing exited the spaceport, having made her passage through Customs and Immigration with no trouble. The passport chip issued her by Lord Vader guaranteed her Prime Civilian Immunity status, the highest protection accorded someone who was neither in the military nor a member of royalty. She took a drop-tube down three levels to the commuter pad, where a chauffeured skylimo awaited her. As soon as she had boarded, it angled directly up into the highest traffic stratum, a rarefied lane reserved for governmental traffic only.

It had been some time since Sing had been on Coruscant—now Imperial Center—and she marveled at how quickly and thoroughly the destruction inflicted by the Separatists’ carpet bombing had been either repaired or simply hidden from view. Rebuilding was still going on apace. From her privileged position above the general traffic flow she could see, near the horizon, one of the huge construction droids. As tall as a forty-story building, it was methodically masticating its way through a swath of condemned structures. She knew that the resulting rubble would be ground up and separated into component elements, to be reassembled by billions of nanodroids deep in the giant’s metal-and-composite guts. The result would be excreted as pliable new material to be reshaped into whatever forms the architects and city planners decreed.

It was an impressive example of the power and achievements of the Empire. She did not spend too much time contemplating such things, however. Her focus was on learning one thing: whom she would have to hunt.

After all, one did not secure the release from prison of one of the galaxy’s most feared and formidable bounty hunters in order to have floral arrangements designed.

For almost as long as Aurra Sing could remember it had been the thrill of the hunt that had kept her alive, that had given her a reason to progress from one day to the next. It was only when she relied solely on her own skills, her superb reflexes and unique training, that she felt anything even approaching a level of personal comfort. She had relied on nothing else for so long …

One of her earliest memories, from before she had even been capable of walking, was of her spice-addicted mother carrying her down the narrow, twisted, garbage-strewn streets of Nar Shaddaa. Being held safely in her mother’s arms, she remembered it as being one of the very few times she had felt anything approaching security. The moment even approached that emotional state others called happiness.

For Aurra Sing, happiness remained as much theory and speculation as