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“Fine,” Lorn said. “You open it.” He stepped back and let I-Five take his place.

“I live to serve,” the droid said sarcastically, gripping the access wheel. He twirled it easily and popped the hatch. No clouds of boiling steam poured out, and the droid looked inside.

“It appears to go up ten levels, at least. There’s a ladder on the inside. Anyone ready?”

Lorn glanced at Darsha. Green Hair waited placidly beside them. “Do we bring Fashion Plate here with us, or leave him?” he asked her.

Darsha turned to the youth. “Are there any other traps or codes we need to know to get through the tube?”

The Raptor nodded. “Only the door access code at the other end. One-one-three-four-oh.”

The Padawan looked at Lorn. “Leave him.”

Lorn nodded and untied their captive. Darsha laid her hand on the youth’s shoulder and spoke to him one more time. “You will forget all about us.”

“I will forget all about you.”

“Be on your way. If danger threatens, you will come to your senses immediately. Otherwise, you will become yourself again after an hour. Go. And,” Darsha added as he turned to leave, “get a haircut.”

Green Hair nodded and wandered off, still in his Jedi-induced daze. Lorn couldn’t help smiling at the Padawan again. Not bad, not bad at all. He glanced at I-Five and saw the droid watching him, his blank expression somehow even more noncommittal than usual. Lorn cleared his throat and motioned the droid into the pipe. He wasn’t looking forward to climbing a ladder ten stories.

Darsha followed Lorn and I-Five up the ladder. It was a long, claustrophobia-inducing climb, and on top of all the other exertions she had been through, it was fairly grueling. But the thought of finally leaving the lawless abyss that was the Crimson Corridor helped propel her upward.

There was another access hatch at the top, which I-Five popped open easily. They followed him through.

They were in a large chamber that, by the look of it, once had been a central power-dispensing agency for several blocks’ worth of buildings. It was two stories high and filled with conduits of all types, a bewildering array of catwalks, and what looked like several old thermal generators. At some point the plant must have been closed down and turned into a storage facility. At the far end of the room was a thick durasteel storage chamber designed for hazardous wastes. I-Five took a look inside it.

“More junk,” he reported, “including a small carbon-freezing chamber.” The droid looked around the room, noticing the various containers of fuel and tanks of gas for welding stacked all over the place. “I wouldn’t fire any blasters if I were you,” I-Five said to Lorn.

“If I have anything to say about it,” Lorn said with heartfelt intensity, “I’ll never fire a blaster again.”

Darsha looked at I-Five and would have sworn the droid was smiling. Across the room was a door. There were several windows in the upper walls, and through them streamed bright sunlight. She grabbed Lorn and hugged him.

“We made it!”

He looked surprised, then uncertain—then surrendered to the moment and returned the hug. Before he could say anything, however, Darsha felt her joy wash away in a flood of dread.

She could feel him before she could see him. She let go of Lorn and spun toward the door, lightsaber already in her hand.

The door opened.

The Sith was there.

Darth Maul stood in the doorway and gazed upon his quarry, feeling the surprise and horror of the two facing him ripple across the room. They were trapped. He knew it and so did they, and it made this moment all the more glorious. He grinned slowly.

He had arrived at the lower end of the conduit quickly, using the patrol speeder’s strobes to clear a path through the traffic. He had missed them, of course, but a quick reconnaissance of the conduit had revealed the only logical destination of the group. All the while he had acted with just the barest awareness of the Force, cloaking himself from its embrace. He had lived within the powerful boundaries of the dark