Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [71]
The memory surprised him with its intensity. He recalled the smell of the junk dealer’s shop, a mixture of hydraulic fluid and the ozone of cooking circuits. It had been a humid day, and he was tired. He’d been fired from the Jedi Temple only a few days previously—not that they had called it that, of course.
There is no emotion; there is peace.
He’d read the words a thousand times when he had studied his enemies, fought their power over his life and Jax’s. The words had never made sense before, and they didn’t now.
“I figured that he might have some interesting secrets tucked away that I could use, so I bought him and brought him back on-line.”
Lorn remembered the first words the droid had spoken. They had hit him with their utter hopelessness and helplessness, reminding him of his own.
“I am I-FiveYQ, programmed for protocol.” There had been a pause after the initial main sequence had activated, and then the droid had asked, “Are you going to hurt me?”
Fury had blossomed in Lorn when he heard those words. He, too, had been broken into pieces recently, hurt savagely by those he had always been told would protect him.
The Jedi.
Darsha watched Lorn go quiet. Something seemed to have disturbed the man in the telling of his story, something that she felt reticent to press him on. She decided to ask the droid instead.
“So he fixed you up, and you talked him into being your partner?”
I-Five answered after a pause.
“Lorn had been treated badly recently by his … employers. He felt that I was a kindred spirit, at least in potential. He had a friend who was handy at reprogramming droids install a top-of-the-line AI cognitive module, and deactivated my creativity damper, as well. As a result, I am as close to full sentience as any droid can be.”
Intrigued, Darsha had to ask. “Who were his employers?”
I-Five glanced at Lorn before replying. “The Jedi.”
She had suspected as much. That explained Master Bondara’s recognition of the name. But why and how had the order treated Lorn so terribly? As far as she knew, they always dealt fairly with all employees who were non-Jedi. It didn’t make any sense.
“How long have you trained at the Temple, Padawan Assant?”
It was plain, at least, that I-Five was a better droid than the one assigned to watch over the Fondorian in the safe house. That one hadn’t recognized her as a Padawan.
“I’ve lived at the temple practically all my life. My formal training started when I was four,” she said. And probably ended as of today, she added silently.
“I have been in business with Lorn Pavan for five standard years.”
Then the droid went silent and left Darsha to her own thoughts. She realized that he had given her a clue to the mystery of Lorn’s past.
She cast her thoughts back five years earlier. A new student had come to the temple back then, a two-year-old. Darsha remembered it because of the boy’s high midi-chlorian count. She hadn’t heard all the details of course, but the temple was a small pond, and ripples of any discord traveled quickly across its surface. Apparently the boy had been the son of a temple employee, who had been fired after he agreed to let his son be trained—why, she wasn’t sure.
She gave Lorn a measuring look. If he were that student’s father, and if his son had been taken from him without his consent, to be raised by the order—well, then it was certainly no wonder that he hated the Jedi.
She tried to imagine how she would feel in his place, but could not.
She looked at Lorn again and knew her suspicion was right. It certainly explained the man’s attitude toward her and Master Bondara. She felt a great upsurge of pity for him then, so much so that she had to look away from him lest he read it in her expression.
She turned her focus back to their surroundings. It still rankled her that she hadn’t noticed the Cthons before they had attacked, and she had vowed to herself not to let something like that happen again.