• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

She stepped forward, ready for battle.

"Hey I have a feeling your plans aren't going to turn out quite as well as you thought, Kusk," Jacen said. He wished fleetingly that he and Tenel Ka were wearing their lightsabers, but they had removed them for the Ceremony of Waters.

Sliding his comlink through a loop in his belt, Kusk faced the door, only mildly surprised by the intruders. His lip curled in a sneer. "I don't really think three children and a woman can do much to thwart the plans of a trained killer and a seasoned bounty hunter." He turned back toward his quarry. Aryn Thul glared contemptuously at the traitorous guard.

Raynar squared his shoulders. "Maybe not," he said. "But there's a great deal that three Jedi can do."

As the guard snorted in disdain, another hammer blow from the attacker struck the Tradewyn. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jacen administered a hard Force shove against the guard's back. At the same moment Tenel Ka lifted Kusk a few centimeters off the floor with her mind, throwing him off balance. Raynat held out one arm, and the astonished guard's blaster finally spun from his grasp into the young man's Outstretched hand.

"Don't hurt him," Aryn cautioned in a loud voice. 'We'll need him alive to learn how far this conspiracy goes."

Kusk's feet thumped down onto the deck-plates.

Open-mouthed, he retreated as if pulled by invisible strings until his back pressed against the hull of the Rock Dragon.

His eyes darted in panic from Jacen and Tenel Ka to Raynat and Aryn and back again.

"How did you do that?" he rasped.

Jacen crossed his arms over his chest.

"We're Jedi. One of my best friends is training to be a bounty hunter,"

he said, thinking of Zekk. "And you violated one of their most fundamental rules: Always do your research."

Kusk snatched at his comlink. "High Roller, this is Kusk. I've been captured. Save yourself."

Aryn strode to the comm panel by the airlock door. "Security backup team to secondary docking bay immediately," she said in a calm, commanding voice. Red lights strobed and sirens whooped. Kusk flailed for the entry hatch of the Rock Dragon and attempted to pull himself inside.

"I wouldn't, if I were you,"' Tenel Ka said.

Kusk hesitated for just a moment. "My ship has a fail-safe navigational program," she explained. "Unless my crew or I input the proper authorization code, the ship is programmed to find the most direct route to Hapes and dock at the high-security hangar of the Hapan royal house."

She smiled coldly. "Not even you would want to explain yourself to my parents, my grandmother, and the seven hundred hand-picked guards stationed there."

A burst of static blasted from the comlink in Kusk's hand. He dropped it as if it were a venomous reptile and sank to the floor. The next moment the Tradewyn's security squad arrived. One of the guards stopped to report. "That particular bounty hunter won't be bothering you anymore,"

she said to Aryn Thul. "We sustained only minimal damage, but the High Roller made an unlucky bet. The ship is completely destroyed. No survivors."

"Thank you," Raynar's mother said.

A thin wail rose from the floor next to the Rock Dragon. Jacen could just barely make out the words of Kusk's mournful cry: "My brother!"

STILL TRYING TO make peace with the memories of his Dark Jedi days, Zekk eagerly sought out an assignment to begin his new career as a bounty hunter. As a first step toward finding an employer, he went to the most bustling place he could think of--a bazaar of traders and smugglers, scam artists, lawbreakers, and opportunists, inside the hollow center of asteroid Borgo Prime. From there, he hoped to establish his credentials, while adhering to the Bounty Hunters Creed.

At a loss after his arrival, he spent days wandering through the airlocked, low-gravity city. He moved from establishment to establishment, putting out the word that he was looking for work as a bounty hunter. He also made numerous inquiries about the most recent known location of a man named Bornan Thul.

It seemed every bounty hunter in the galaxy