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There! Right in front of her, no more than five meters away, stood the target, clad in a cloak and cowl and looking in the opposite direction. Sing’s fingers tightened around the haft of her lightsaber. Moving silently, she drew near. As she did so, several replicated images of herself appeared to her left, right, and overhead. Each was equally determined, each equally grim.

It was too easy. Sing hesitated. She could feel the Force emanating from her target, but could sense no suspicion, no wariness. Why didn’t he sense her approach? Insufficient training, perhaps. Not properly attuned. Vader had told her that Pavan was hardly a master of the discipline. No matter; the Force was clearly present here. If this was in fact her quarry, she would bring him back alive to the Dark Lord; if not, then he was just another rogue Jedi or a Force-sensitive, and either way she would be allowed the pleasure of the kill. But she would not strike without first seeing the face of her victim. For the bounty hunter this was not a matter of ethics; it was all about personal satisfaction.

Clutching the lightsaber in her right hand, her thumb’s pressure just short of activating it, she reached out with the Force across the few meters separating them and gently “touched” the individual standing before her. Light as Sing’s mental goad was, the figure whirled at the sensation. The hood of the overcape fell back, and Sing’s gaze met the other’s.

Sing had just time enough to register that it was a female Twi’lek who stood before her. Then, before she realized it, her lightsaber was activated and parrying blasts from the twin DL-44s in the other’s hands.

Sing threw herself sideways. Half a dozen replications of herself duplicated the move with unnatural precision. Lightsaber whirling, she not only deflected incoming fire but struck back as well, knocking the bolts back toward her foe.

Using the Force, the Twi’lek leapt upward to the next level of the structure. The multiple images of herself that accompanied the jump offered no protection from a killer whose eyes could be deceived but to whom the Force spoke clearly.

Sing was right behind her. Spinning, whirling, jumping, she deflected every shot fired in her direction. A glimpse of one of her doppelgängers showed her lightsaber moving so fast, she appeared to be engulfed in a sphere of green fire.

But the Twi’lek’s aim was better than it had any right to be; it was on the same skill level as that of someone taught in the Temple. A bolt from one of the blasters slipped past Sing’s whirling lightsaber and singed her left shoulder. The bounty hunter gritted her teeth and slashed an opening in one of the plasti-form walls. Several surprised customers, seeing the fearsome form and a number of attendant images of her appear through the wall, fled screaming.

This wasn’t going well. The combination of the kaleidoscopic images and the panic-stricken civilians caused her grasp on the Force to briefly lessen. It was only for the fraction of a second, but that was enough time to allow the real Twi’lek to land a punch on her jaw that caused the world to momentarily dim.

Enough of this, Sing decided. She had a mission to perform, and, although her opponent wasn’t the Jedi she’d been sent after, the Twi’lek was still somehow connected to her prey. She would have to be taken alive and questioned.

Easier said than done, however. Eluding a complex swing of her lightsaber, the Twi’lek managed for just an instant to get under Sing’s guard. She fired. Sing felt the heat of the bolt and barely succeeded, aided by the Force, in arching backward enough for it to miss her face. Her high left cheek instantly acquired a four-by-one-centimeter sunburn. The dangerously close miss was enough to compel her to do something she had not done in some time.

She pulled her own blaster.

Handling the lightsaber with her right hand, she snapped off several bolts with the blaster gripped in her left. One burst caught the Twi’lek unprepared, blowing