Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [41]
Prefect Haus would learn then mighty fast where the rogue Force-sensitive was hiding. Assuming that he survived the discovery …
eight
“How did you know I was a Jedi?” Jax stood where the kinetic light from Ves Volette’s sculpture played across his face, obscuring his expression from the police prefect, who paced up and down the center of the living room, his dingy topcoat swirling about his legs. “Who—or what—gave me away?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“No big proof. More like a body of evidence. A lot of little things. The way your companions and associates react to you. The way you carry yourself. The way you observe what’s going on around you. The way you react to it. The way you seem to disappear from my radar sometimes when I know you’re there. The way your hand hovers over your left hip when you sense danger. The speed of your reactions …” Haus shrugged. “Someone sent a bounty hunter after you—a Sith-trained bounty hunter. You came back alive; she didn’t.”
Jax knew Haus was talking about Aurra Sing. He had wondered if the Sith lightsaber he now carried hadn’t belonged to her—the fact that he’d gotten it from an anonymous source just prior to his confrontation with Sing surely couldn’t have been a coincidence. He didn’t ask how Haus had known about the connection. He was the police prefect; it was his business to know that sort of thing. Jax just hadn’t expected that he would know it. Apparently he had underestimated Pol Haus.
Haus continued, “When someone like that shows up on your turf you find out why as quickly and quietly as you can. I knew she was trailing a Jedi—a young Jedi who matched your description. I called in a few favors, got a list of Jedi who still haven’t been run down. Guess whose name was on there.” He looked at Jax with a cocked eyebrow. “Did you want to be found? ’Cause I’m thinking you sure didn’t go to a whole lot of trouble to make yourself scarce.”
Now that he’d laid it out, it did seem to Jax that he’d done a remarkably poor job of covering his tracks. He wondered what Haus had divined from how his companions reacted to him. He glanced from Den to Rhinann to Dejah to I-Five. He wasn’t going to ask that just now.
Instead he asked, “Vader came to you directly?”
Haus snorted. “Get serious. He sent one of his goons—oh, excuse me—one of his Inquisitors to fetch me. He made sure the meeting took place on his turf and that I was suitably impressed with his security measures and clout.”
Jax stiffened. “You were at Vader’s headquarters?” Images flashed through his head of tracking devices and furtive tails. Judging from the expression on Rhinann’s and Den’s faces, their thoughts had taken the same path. Dejah, bless her, seemed not to have caught the sinister implications of the prefect’s words. Her lips were parted, her eyes bright, as if he’d just told her she’d been awarded a prize.
I-Five, correctly interpreting Jax’s concern, said, “He’s clean. Any tracking devices would have pinged the sensor net at the entrance to the mews.”
Haus, his gaze never leaving Jax’s face, said, “Don’t worry. I’m a professional. I went back to my own headquarters and had myself carefully and completely debugged—and yes, there were some stowaways on my person. They’re gone now and, no, I don’t really give an armored rat’s behind what Vader thinks of me removing them. What I do care about,” he added, “is that a rogue Force-user—a truly rogue Force-user—might be a little overexcited by his ability to take out Inquisitors. He might develop a taste for it. He might strike again. Which would be very bad for all of us.”
Jax felt Kaj’s presence on the other side of the door to his room, felt the chill spikes of his sudden fear. He split his attention, sending the youth calming thoughts.
“So,” Haus continued, “I’m sure it comes as no surprise, Pavan, that I need someone of your unique ability to help me find the assassin.”
Haus’s