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“There’s a more important reason for your not being informed about the transceiver.”

Now Palpatine waited.

“It contained a stored message—a message transmitted to Viceroy Gunray from Darth Sidious.”

Palpatine’s broad forehead wrinkled in uncertainty. “Sidious. I know the name …”

“Dooku’s Sith Master, Sidious is. Learned of him on Geonosis, Master Kenobi did. But eluded us, proof of him has.”

“Now I recall,” Palpatine said. “Obi-Wan was told that this Sidious had somehow infiltrated the Senate.”

“Dismissed that, we have. But lying about Sidious, Dooku wasn’t.”

Palpatine swiveled his chair toward the room’s immense curved window, the panorama of Coruscant. “Another Sith.” Turning back to Yoda, he said: “Forgive me, but why is this of such great concern?”

“Carefully balanced this war has been. Republic victories, Separatist victories … In prolonging it, a part the Sith may play.”

Again, Palpatine paused to consider Yoda’s words. “I think I begin to understand the reasons for your secrecy. The Jedi are attempting to expose Sidious.”

“In pursuit of clues, we are.”

“Might the capture of Sidious end the war?”

“Hasten the end,” Mace said.

Palpatine nodded in finality. “Then I trust that you will accept my apologies. Do whatever you must to hunt Sidious down.”

When the Xi Charrian said it was an asteroid mining operation, I wasn’t picturing an actual asteroid,” Obi-Wan said from the copilot’s seat of the Republic cruiser.

“It was TeeCee-Sixteen who told us that,” Anakin said. “Maybe something was lost in translation.”

The protocol droid had been sent to Coruscant for further debriefing by Republic Intelligence; R2-D2 was on Belderone, where technicians were seeing to damages he had sustained during the battle there. Obi-Wan and Anakin had the old white ship to themselves, and had exchanged their Jedi robes for outfits more suitable to itinerant spacers.

Named for the asteroid belt in which it was prominent, the Escarte Commerce Guild facility orbited between massive, multi-mooned gas giants in an otherwise uninhabited star system two hyperspace jumps from Belderone, on the Rimward side of the Perlemian Trade Route. Oblate when mining operations had commenced twenty years earlier, Escarte was now a concave hemisphere, heavily cratered by the forces of nature and the gargantuan labor droids of the Commerce Guild. Satisfied that every bit of ore had been extracted from Escarte, the guild had converted the asteroid’s consequent quarries, tunnels, and shafts into processing centers and field offices. State-of-the-art tractor beam technology allowed the guild to capture small asteroids and draw them directly into the facility, rather than have to use tugs or engage in on-site mining. In many ways Escarte was the ore-mining equivalent of the Tibanna-gas-mining facilities that floated in the dense atmosphere of Bespin, far across the stars.

Unfriendly space, the belt was defended by Commerce Guild corvettes and fleet patrol craft modeled on the Geonosian starfighter. Regardless, Republic Intelligence had managed to insert one of its agents onto Escarte. Obi-Wan and Anakin hadn’t been told when or even if they were going to make contact with the agent, but moments before leaving Belderone they had been informed that Thal K’sar—the Bith artisan who allegedly had designed the hyperwave transceiver and holoprojector for Gunray’s mechno-chair—had been arrested, on charges yet to be learned.

An alert chime sounded from the cruiser’s instrument console.

“Escarte,” Anakin said. “Demanding that we identify ourselves and state our intent.”

“We’re freelance merchants in search of work,” Obi-Wan reminded him.

Anakin activated the comm and said as much into the microphone.

“Corellian cruiser,” a husky voice returned, “negative on your request to dock. Escarte has no job openings. Suggest you try Ansion or Ord Mantell.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze drifted to the viewport. Off to starboard, a corvette was coming about.

“Intercept vector,” Anakin said. “Any last-minute