Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - Michael Reaves [51]
Seeing Den sitting in front of the café, Dejah seemed to hesitate; then, at his beckoning gesture, she came to take the seat opposite him.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he suggested, feeling utterly foolish.
“All right,” she said graciously. “A caf?”
He got up to place the order, returning to the table with a steaming beverage and a possible, though utterly lame, way of starting the conversation: Hey, what do you think of our new boy wonder? He set the cup of caf in front of Dejah, slid back onto his chair, and opened his mouth.
Dejah preempted him. “I’m worried about Jax,” she said.
“Why is that?”
Dejah folded her hands around the thermo-cup, making it appear as if the steam rose from her fingertips, and looked at him earnestly. “I’m terrified that I-Five is going to convince Jax to opt into Tuden Sal’s ridiculous … scheme. Do you have any idea of what that could mean?”
Didn’t I already have this conversation? Den asked himself. Aloud, he said, “Well, it could put both I-Five and Jax in harm’s way. And us, by extension.”
Dejah took a sip of her drink and glanced up at Den through her lashes, which he could swear were getting longer by the minute. “Yes, by extension. But I was thinking more of Jax himself, the thing he holds most dear.” She leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice nearly to a whisper. “The continuation of his kind.”
“You mean the—” Den glanced around, then made a surreptitious gesture with one hand imitating someone wielding a lightsaber.
She nodded.
“What makes you think he’ll go for the scheme? I mean, there’s every reason not to do it—don’t you think?”
“Of course. Apart from the danger to himself, there’s the risk to the Whiplash, the others of his kind, and the boy. The fact that failure would even more deeply enslave us all. And failure,” she added, “is the most likely result.”
Den blanched. “I-Five seems to think it would work.”
“I-Five is thinking like a biological life-form, not a droid. It’s wishful thinking. The odds against him succeeding are astronomical. If there were only some way to make certain of his success, and of Jax’s survival.” She shook her head.
“I’m sure Five has a plan …,” Den said weakly.
She frowned. “Rhinann said the same thing. He talked about something called … um … bota—is that right? Yes, bota. He said it would make Jax invincible.”
Startled, Den snorkeled hot caf up his nose and went into a fit of sneezing and choking.
“Wind spirits bless you,” Dejah murmured after Zeltron custom, bowing her head almost into her cup.
“Thanks,” Den said when he could talk again. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Rhinann said that? He told you about the bota? I wasn’t sure he knew.”
“Yes, poor thing. He’s worried, too. He said the bota is the only real chance that Jax has to survive if I-Five and Sal go through with this ridiculous plan. If he’s able to take it at the appropriate time, he’ll be able to blow our enemy away.”
Den tried not to look stupefied. “Really? He said that?”
She nodded again. “So I asked him if he was sure the bota was where Jax could get to it easily, and he said he didn’t know. He had to trust that I-Five had done something with it to keep it safe.”
Den shrugged. “Well, sure. I trust I-Five, don’t you?”
She fixed him with a look that all but curled the rims of his ears.
Den exhaled explosively, feeling as if she’d gut-punched him. “Point taken. So you think I-Five’s not firing on all thrusters?” A delusional droid—was that even possible?
He remembered how Dejah’s partner had been murdered, and felt more blood drain out of his head.
“I think that as much as I-Five loves Jax Pavan,” she said, “he loves his father’s memory more. Remember, Den—I-Fivewhycue doesn’t have the same sense of time that we have. He doesn’t forget anything—no matter how unpleasant the memory is or how long ago it was made. Organic sentients can count on the passage of the