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As the air taxi lifted off, its driver having been given directions, Maul kept an eye out for followers. It was unlikely there would be any, since almost all who had seen him had died, or were ten or more levels below—but his master had ordered stealth, and thus it would be.

Lorn and I-Five watched the dark figure alight from the cab and walk toward the upper entrance of an abandoned monad. They watched for a few more minutes until the Sith reappeared on the rooftop.

A few seconds later they saw him step into thin air and vanish.

“Nice trick,” Tuden Sal said.

Lorn just stared, completely baffled for the moment, not sure whether to believe his eyes. Was this some new arcane power of the murdering Sith? But then he heard I-Five say, in answer to Sal’s comment, “He must have a high-grade cloaking device. Probably crystal-based.”

Of course. Their nemesis had gotten into a cloaked spaceship. It made perfect sense, Lorn thought. The Sith had accomplished his mission; he had gotten the holocron and, as far as he was concerned, killed everyone who knew anything about it. He was no doubt preparing to leave Coruscant.

Only I’m not dead, you murderer. You think I am, but I’m not.

The question was, what was he going to do now?

For the first time since this nightmare had begun, he was safe. The Sith thought he was dead. All Lorn had to do was lie low and the demonic killer would pass out of his life forever. He and I-Five could get off Coruscant and pile as many parsecs between them and the hub of the galaxy as they deemed necessary. They wouldn’t be rich, but they’d be alive.

And the rankweed sucker who had killed Darsha would get away with his crime.

Lorn knew he could go to the Jedi and tell them what had happened. They would no doubt mobilize their ranks and start hunting for the one who had killed two of their order. Even though Lorn and they had some bad history, there would be no problem convincing them to believe him—one of the few advantages of dealing with a fraternity of Force users.

But the wheels of any organization, no matter how self-consciously benign, turn slowly and ponderously. Even now, the Sith was no doubt getting ready to raise ship. Could even the Jedi find him once he fled this world?

Lorn stared out the window. Before him, spread from horizon to horizon, lay Coruscant in all its tessellated splendor. More than just about anybody else, he felt he could say that he had seen the best and the worst the capital planet had to offer. He had led a life that had been by turns dangerous, frustrating, terrifying, and heartbreaking. There had been little joy in it. Still, he was reluctant to do anything that might result in his losing it.

He had never wanted to be a hero. All he had wanted was to live a quiet, normal life with his wife and son. But his wife had left him, and the Jedi—those whom the galaxy looked upon as heroes—had seduced him into giving them his son.

He would never have called any Jedi a hero—until he met Darsha Assant.

He took a deep breath and looked at Tuden Sal. “We need a spaceship,” he said.

His friend nodded. “I-Five told me. No problem. Where do you want to go?”

Lorn looked back down at the roof of the monad, where the Sith had been visible until a moment ago.

“Wherever he’s going.”

Darth Maul settled into the pilot’s chair. He pressed his hand to a sensor plate on the console before him, and the hemispheric control chamber filled with various hums, tones, and vibrations as the Infiltrator powered up. A quick outside scan revealed nothing in the immediate area that would interfere with his launch. Maul nodded in satisfaction.

His mission was nearly over at last. It had taken far longer than anticipated and had led him into dark corners of Coruscant he had not even known existed. But now his assignment was almost accomplished. Everyone whom Hath Monchar had spoken to, every potential information leak, had been stilled. Darth Sidious’s plan for the trade embargo, and eventually the destruction of the Republic, could now proceed unchallenged.

Maul pulled the holocron from