Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [92]
Fortunately it was common practice for the nobles of Serenno to make frequent unscheduled—and unreported—landings, even on Coruscant. The wealthy weren’t bound by the rules of the average Republic citizen, and portraying herself as a servant sent to bribe a port administrator upon landing wouldn’t strike anyone as unusual. Arriving onworld without drawing undue attention would be the easy part of her mission. Gaining access to the Archives in the Jedi Temple would be much more difficult.
Bane was taking a tremendous gamble in sending her there. They had spent the past decade hiding from the Jedi, and now she was about to enter the very heart of the order. But she couldn’t second-guess his decision, not when she had been partly responsible. It was she who had planted the first seeds of doubt in her Master’s mind about the orbalisks, and now her scheme had come to fruition. Bane had decided—for her sake and the sake of the Sith—that he had to free himself from the infestation.
Nothing in Freedon Nadd’s original experiments indicated that the orbalisks could be extracted from the host, and Bane’s own research into the subject had failed to uncover anything to the contrary. But the Jedi Archives were the greatest single collection of assembled knowledge in the known galaxy. If an answer existed, they would find it there.
Her Master had taken every precaution to keep her true identity hidden while she visited the Archives. Through his network of mysterious informants and shadowy contacts, he had assembled a list of names and background portfolios for virtually every member of the Jedi Order. From this list, he had chosen one name that suited their purpose: Nalia Adollu.
Nalia was a Padawan of approximately Zannah’s age under the tutelage of Anno Wen-Chii, a famously reclusive Pyn’gani Jedi Master on the Outer Rim world of Polus. Over the past week Zannah had memorized every detail of her profile and history, along with the history of Master Anno, so she could pass herself off as the young woman.
The cover story was simple: Zannah would claim her Master was studying a rare breed of parasitic organism that lived beneath the ice-covered surface of Polus. Eager to compare the newly discovered life-form with similar species from other worlds, but loath to leave the quiet of his homeworld, he had sent his Padawan to gather research materials from the Jedi Archive.
Yet she would need more than a plausible cover story to maintain her disguise when she presented herself to the chief librarian and asked for permission to view the Archives. Zannah and Nalia were of the same age. They were roughly the same height and shared the same athletic build. They both had long, flowing hair—though Zannah had dyed her locks a deep, lustrous black to match those of the other woman.
It had been five years since Nalia had last left her Master’s side on Polus, so there was little chance of running into anyone who knew her well enough to recognize Zannah as an imposter. But even if her appearance didn’t give her away, there was one final element to consider.
Throughout her mission, she would be surrounded by servants of the light; if they sensed the dark side in her, she would be instantly exposed. The secrecy she and Bane had worked so hard to preserve would be destroyed. Everything they had labored for over the past decade, everything they had accomplished, would be for naught. She would surely be captured, possibly condemned to death, and her Master would be hunted down and slain.
The only way the plan would work was if she could use the power of Sith sorcery to mask her strength while simultaneously projecting an aura of light-side energy. It was a complicated spell, one she had never tried before. It required a