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“Anything I am ordered to do is necessary,” Mor replied. A large Keshiri, more than two meters tall and broad, he seemed completely fine with stepping in foul-smelling sludge and contorting his large frame to navigate the cramped tunnels that forced them all to go single-file and him to stoop. His response was, of course, the proper one, and the others were paying close attention to the conversation. Taneka cursed herself silently.

“Of course, Saber Akrav,” she said. “I misspoke. I simply think that a group with our combined abilities could be put to a use that would have more immediate and effective results. I personally am going to recommend that unless we see something truly remarkable, the entire subterranean area should be closed off.”

“Well then,” Mor said with irritating amiability, “that will be a highly useful conclusion to have reached, and thus would render this exploration necessary to have reached it.”

There was a muffled chuckle behind them. Taneka froze and shone her glow rod back at Jashvi and Rulin, who looked as if they had never laughed at anything in their lives. She caught the gazes of each of them and stared them down, then turned around and continued forward.

“Even if it is large,” Mor said, “we will have more than enough Sith to fill it soon. Think how pleased High Lord Yur will be to instruct the new apprentices in such a place. Think what we will learn once we have full access to the Jedi Archives. Think—”

“What I will do to you if you are not silent,” snapped Taneka. “Your prattle grows tiresome.”

“Don’t tell me you are afraid of close quarters or smelly tunnels,” said Mor.

With no warning Taneka stopped dead in her tracks. Mor bumped into her. “What—” he began.

She elbowed him into silence. The sound came again. A sort of—scuffling, as of something very large and very fast.

“Perhaps the Jedi kept guardians,” said Mor, speaking very softly. “As the ancient Sith did for their temples—the tuk’ata and such.”

Taneka nodded her white head slowly. “Perhaps,” she said. She would speak as little as possible. She wanted to listen. “Weapons.”

She heard the rustle of robes as the four Sith reached for their small handheld blasters. All of them preferred the lightsaber, but they recognized that there were times when blasters were more convenient. Taneka did not for a moment think that Jedi kept guardians for their Temple—certainly not “as the Sith did.” The Sith tomb and temple guardians were steeped in dark-side energies, bred not out of soft, weak sentiments of “defending” but rather to tear the flesh off the bones of those who would desecrate. She could not conceive of Jedi doing anything that would cause such satisfactory harm. A virus that would delete information lest it fall into the wrong hands? Of course. Breeding demonic protectors? No.

Which meant that this was something else. Something that shouldn’t be here for either Sith or Jedi.

She moved forward cautiously, blaster in one hand, glow rod in the other. The only sound now was that of their own breathing and the squelch of rot beneath their feet.

Scrabble. Thunk. Scritch-scritch.

And again, silence.

Taneka clicked her comm. “Saber Taneka Shirru to High Lord Shia. We are in the lower northwestern portion of the Temple. We appear to have encountered some form of life. No visuals on them yet, but we can definitely hear them. We will eliminate them and bring back a corpse for you to study. Advise other teams about the situation and to be prepared.”

“Acknowledged, Shirru. We’ll mount the head on a column in the Great Hall when you’re done.”

Taneka smiled. “Yes, we’ll do that.”

“I never liked the idea of mounting heads as trophies. It always seemed rather crass to me. Maybe we can make a cloak out of its fur instead,” Mor suggested.

“We don’t know that it has fur,” Taneka said.

“We don’t know that it has a head,” Mor countered.

While normally Mor’s overly cheerful arrogance annoyed her, Taneka found herself grateful for it now. She felt the tension in her group ease slightly, felt them become more focused as if