Star Wars_ Darth Maul 02_ Shadow Hunter - Michael Reaves [85]
He was back in the transport tube now. Ahead of him he could see light shining down from overhead, where he’d cut through the ventilation grid. Maul gathered the Force to himself and jumped straight up, rising several body lengths to shoot through the opening. A derelict human, deep in the throes of some narcotic delusion, was lying on the street nearby. He saw the Sith rise from the depths, gave out a little gasp, and passed out as Maul’s boots touched the pavement.
Not far away, the wreckage of the Twi’lek Jedi’s skycar and its attendant debris still partially blocked the streets. The Sith Lord considered how he might best locate his quarry. Once he reacquired their trail he could easily locate them. The weakness of that strategy was that he would still be following them. There had been far too much of that. Much better to get ahead of them somehow and be waiting for them.
Maul recalled the method by which he’d located the Neimoidian earlier. Perhaps the planetary net cams would be useful to him again; if he could find the most recent location where the humans had been seen, he could save time tracking them by going straight to it.
But to begin his search he needed a data terminal, and there were none to be found in this urban jungle. He was reminded of something Lord Sidious had once told him: “For every solution there are two problems.”
Darth Maul considered for a moment, then activated his wrist comm and holoscreen monitor. He commed the Infiltrator, tapped into its main computer, and used that to access the port datalink, bypassing the regular navigation request screens until he located a menu offering access to other networks. His master’s password again opened locked doors, and within a few seconds he had called up several data sources.
The first was a holomap of this section of the Crimson Corridor. Maul located his current position and tapped in the last known vectors for the humans and the droid.
The planetary data bank gave him the information he wanted. It was as he had suspected; they were heading in the direction of the Jedi Temple, using the droid’s global positioner to guide them. Fortunately they still had a long way to go, not only toward the Temple, but uplevels, as well. He zeroed down to street level and identified several exits from the subterranean passages that they might have used.
Next he tapped into Coruscant’s security network and called up a listing of surveillance cams near those exits. He flashed through hundreds of images from the last few minutes, finding nothing that would help him. He left the link open and shifted to check recent crimes in the area. Not surprisingly, hundreds of incidents popped up for the last few hours in the Crimson Corridor: street fights, petty theft, other common crimes. He noted in passing an oddity: A droid was being sought for scamming the banking system. But he found nothing recent that had happened in the target areas that would serve him.
Darth Maul scowled. He needed transportation; that way he could get nearer his target zones. He considered the problem.
As he did so, his comm flashed that he had an incoming message. He felt a finger of worry touch him. It could be only his master. The thought of not answering did not occur to the Sith. He toggled the secure communications mode, dumping his connection to the security net, and waited for the readout to confirm his scrambled signal.
Sidious’s voice crackled over the comlink. “Time grows short, my apprentice. What is the state of your current project?”
“My master, I have obtained the holocron. I am holding it for your inspection. There have been … delays in finding the human whom the Neimoidian spoke with, but they are now within my grasp. I shall not fail you.”
Darth Sidious was silent for a second before he replied.
“See that you do not. When they are dead, contact me, and I will instruct you in