Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [42]
“Jax …,” she murmured, but anything else she might have said was interrupted by a loud thud from the next room and the unmistakable sound of a Sontaran song ball being abused.
Pol Haus frowned, turning to look in the direction of the open doorway. “You have more houseguests?”
“Oh no,” said Dejah looking apologetic. “It’s my whisperkit droid. I’ve forgotten to deactivate it—again,” she added with charming self-deprecation. “I do that so often, you really should remind me, Jax, not to leave it playing with its toys. I’ll just go turn it off.”
She swept across the room to Jax’s door and disappeared inside. Her voice came back to them lightly—only Jax caught the undertone of agitation. “Oh, there you are, you poor thing. Come down from there now. Everything’s just fine. Did that nasty song ball scare you?”
They heard the soft chime of the Sontaran meditation device, then Dejah said, “Good droid. Come to Dejah.”
Both Den and Rhinann had turned a pale shade of blue-gray and looked about to leap out of their respective skins. I-Five was as impenetrable as a droid was supposed to be.
Jax felt laughter born of relief bubbling up from his throat. He pushed it back down. Without doubt, Dejah was the only one among them who could have walked into that room just then with the least chance of being felled by the frightened boy’s power. Dejah was, at that moment, the only one Kajin trusted. Jax almost shook his head in bemusement: a Zeltron empath accomplishing what even a Jedi Knight most likely could not.
He turned back to Pol Haus. “You were saying you wanted our help finding the assassin. What do you intend to do with him if we catch him?”
It was not Jax’s imagination that everyone in the room held his breath.
After a moment of close scrutiny, the prefect said slowly, deliberately, “Turning him over to Vader is out of the question. He killed an Inquisitor, so he’s clearly not a Sith or a Sith sympathizer. That means his abilities could be used by the Jedi.”
“Prefect,” Jax said quietly, “I don’t know that there are any other Jedi on Coruscant—or anywhere else for that matter.”
Haus lowered his horned head and gave Jax an almost sly look out of the corners of his eyes. “I have it on good authority that there are other Jedi about. Can’t tell you where or who, but I’m convinced they’re there. And this powerful an adept shouldn’t be lost to them, I’m thinking.”
Den leaned forward in his window casement. “So you’d—what—help smuggle him offworld? Go underground? What? I mean, Vader would expect you to turn the killer in, right?”
“Yes, he would. Which is why when I tell him that the killer died while we were in pursuit of him—fell into the materials hopper of a fabber at the spaceport, say—he would most likely believe me.”
Jax blinked and met the prefect’s golden eyes. He swept him again with his Force sense—which he was convinced the Zabrak knew he was doing—and again saw the swirling ribbons of smoky darkness encircling him. They were dimmer now, less active, but they were still there.
Darth Vader’s residual touch, or something else? Something dark that emanated from Pol Haus himself?
Jax knew the prefect was asking for trust, for cooperation, but he also knew the consequences if those were mistakenly given. He couldn’t take that chance, even though Haus seemed to have disinterred a great deal of information about their activities—at least insofar as they concerned Aurra Sing.
Did he know these things, or was he merely guessing, hoping Jax would reveal more?
“You’ll understand if I’m reluctant to jump into this,” Jax said. “You’re talking about a potential Jedi, and I’ve only your word that you mean this person no harm.”
The Zabrak nodded. “Yes, though I might be able to get someone else’s word. Someone you trust. And besides, I’ve shown that I mean you no harm, Jedi. I’ve suspected that you were more than you made yourself