Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [16]
But darkness was the least of the dangers in the Corridor. Far worse were the things, both human and nonhuman, that lived in the darkness and preyed on the unwary.
Darsha piloted her skyhopper down through the miasmal fog that lay like a filthy blanket over the lowest levels. Why, she wondered, would anyone pick a neighborhood like this for a place in which to conceal informants? The answer was, of course, that it was the last place anyone would look.
The safe house—a barricaded block of ferrocrete and plasteel—was in a street that was not wide enough for her to set the skyhopper down. She landed in the closest intersection, got out, and instructed the autopilot to take the craft up twenty meters and remain in hover mode there. That way it was more likely to be there when she got back.
There were a few glow sticks in protective wired cages set here and there on the buildings, but after centuries of use they were so weak that they did little to relieve the gloom. As soon as Darsha disembarked from her vehicle she was set upon by beggars supplicating for food and money. At first she tried the ancient Jedi technique of clouding their minds, but there were too many of them, and most of them had brains too addled by privation and various illegal chemicals to respond to the suggestion. She gritted her teeth and pushed her way though the forest of filthy waving arms, tentacles, and various other appendages.
The mingled revulsion and sympathy she felt was almost overwhelming. For nearly as long as she could remember, Darsha had been coddled and cozened in the Jedi Temple, protected from direct contact with the dregs of society—an ironic situation, since the Jedi were supposed to be the protectors of all levels of civilization, even those considered untouchable by most of the upper classes. True, elements of her training had taken her to various rough neighborhoods, but nowhere else had she seen anything that even remotely compared with this. It horrified her that such poverty and neglect could exist anywhere, let alone on Coruscant.
She made it to the recessed entrance of the safe house and pounded on the reinforced door. A slit opened, and a sentry cam extruded from it. “Your name and business?” it asked in a rasping voice.
“Darsha Assant, on the Jedi Council’s business.”
An emaciated Kubaz sought to pluck her lightsaber from its hook on her utility belt. She seized his hand and bent the thumb backwards. He squealed and backed hastily away, but others took his place immediately. The only reason they did not drag her back into the street was that there were too many to crowd into the narrow aperture where she stood.
The security cam quickly ran a laser scan over her face. “Identity confirmed. Please hold your breath.”
Darsha did so—whereupon hidden nozzles surrounding the door sprayed a pink mist at the crowd of mendicants. A chorus of indignant shouts, squeals, bleats, and other protests rose from them as the airborne irritant drove them momentarily back. The door slid quickly up, and a metallic arm grabbed Darsha and pulled her inside.
She found herself in a narrow corridor that was almost as dark as the street. The security droid who had taken her arm now led her down this passageway and around a corner, into a small, windowless room. The light was not much better here; Darsha could barely make out a hunched form sitting on a chair. Bald and humanoid, he looked like a Fondorian to her.
The droid said, “This is the Jedi who will take you to safety, Oolth.”
Though she knew it was foolish, Darsha felt a little thrill at being called a Jedi, even by a droid.