Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [26]
He pressed a button that deleted the second message, and glanced at I-Five. “What do you think?”
“I think we have seventeen Republic decicreds in the bank, and whatever change might have fallen under the sleeping pad. I think the rent is due in a week. I think,” I-Five said, “that we should talk to this Neimoidian.”
“I think so, too,” Lorn said.
The time of the evening meal was almost over. Mahwi Lihnn had by now investigated four restaurants whose menus included Neimoidian cuisine. Only one of them was occupied by a Neimoidian at table—a female. Lihnn had questioned her, but she had professed no knowledge of a countryman named Hath Monchar. She had, however, told Lihnn of another eatery in the area that her kind had been known to frequent. It was a small tavern called the Dewback Inn, one of the few drinking establishments in the sector that featured agaric ale, a beverage most Neimoidians were extremely fond of.
Lihnn decided to check it out.
It had not been terribly difficult to find Lorn Pavan’s dwelling cubicle. As Darth Maul approached it, he saw the door open. A human and a droid—the latter one of the protocol series—emerged. Maul quickly faded back into the shadows of the underground thoroughfare and watched them pass. Both matched the descriptions he had been given by the Baragwin bartender.
Excellent. With any luck, they would lead him to his prey.
He followed them at a safe distance, making use of shadows and concealment when it was available and trusting to the cloaking power of the Force when it was not. The human and his droid had no idea they were being followed. He would tail them until they contacted the Neimoidian, and then he would take what action was appropriate.
Maul could feel the dark side surging within him, filling him with impatience, urging him to complete this assignment as quickly as possible. This is not what you were trained for, he thought. These are not prey worthy of your abilities.
He tried to dismiss these thoughts, for they were heretical. His master had given him this assignment; that was all that mattered. But he could not help chafing at this duty. There was no real challenge to his abilities in it. He had been bred and trained to fight and kill Jedi, after all, not rank-and-file beings like these.
The Jedi—how he hated them! How he loathed their hollow sanctimoniousness, their pretense of piety, their hypocrisy. How he longed for the day when their Temple would be a ruin of smoking rubble, littered with their crushed corpses. If he closed his eyes, he could see the apocalypse of the order as vividly as if it were reality. It was reality, after all—a future reality, but nonetheless valid. It was destined, ordained, predetermined. And he would be instrumental in bringing it about. It was what his entire life had been designed for.
Not tracking some pathetic failure through the slums of Coruscant.
Maul shook his head and snarled silently. His purpose was to serve his master, no matter what the assignment was. If Darth Sidious knew he was having such doubts, the Sith Lord would severely punish him, such as he had not been punished since he was a child. And Maul would not resist, even though he was now a grown man. Because Sidious would be right to do so.
The human and his droid emerged from the underground thoroughfare and proceeded along the narrow surface streets. It was late at night, but the planetary city never slept. The streets were crowded no matter what time of day or night it was. This was fortunate, in that it made it easier for Maul to keep his quarry in sight without being noticed.
It would not be much longer, Maul