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  A good field of fire, he decided.

  He took the E-9 blaster pistol—small, compact, but with decent power—held it in his front jacket pocket, and waited.

  Minutes passed, turned to half an hour, to an hour, and he began to think his paranoia had ill served him. The building did not see a lot of foot traffic. A near-obsolete utility droid came up the creaky lift and vacuumed the floor, ignoring Zeerid altogether. When it completed its sweep, it retired to a utility closet next to the lift.

  Zeerid sat alone with only uncomfortable thoughts for company in a stairwell that smelled of urine and vomit. He had let his daughter down. To try and give her a better life, he had turned himself into the kind of man he once would have regarded with contempt. And what did she have to show for it? A decrepit apartment and an absentee father who could die on his next run.

  And a hoverchair, he reminded himself. But still …

  He had to get out of the life. But there was no walking away until he’d cleared his debt with The Exchange. So he’d make a last run to Coruscant—

  The door to the stairwell on the ground floor opened with an angry squeal. At almost the same moment, he heard the rumble of the lift coming up the shaft.

  Alert and tense, he went to the railing at the edge of the stairwell and peered down. Light from the fluorescent fixture attached to the ceiling two floors above him did little to illuminate the stairwell. Shadows coated the lower floors but Zeerid thought he saw a form there, humanoid, and watched it start up the stairs.

  Meanwhile, the chime of the lift announced its arrival on the fourth floor.

  Cupping his blaster in his hand, Zeerid flattened himself against the wall near the doorway of the stairwell. The footsteps coming from below continued their slow ascent. They stopped from time to time, as if the person was unsure of his or her destination, or was stopping to listen.

  The lift doors opened and Zeerid heard the soft susurrus of quiet movement. The lift doors closed.

  The footsteps on the steps started again, stopped.

  Zeerid waited a three-count and poked his head around the doorway to give him a view of the hallway.

  A cloaked figure stole down the corridor, about the size of the man he’d met in the park. He was checking the doors for apartment numbers. Zeerid could not see the figure’s hands. He shot a look back at the stairwell, heard nothing, and stole out into the hallway.

  The figure stopped before Nat’s apartment and consulted a palm-sized portcomp, as if confirming an address.

  Zeerid had seen all he needed to see. He brandished the E-9.

  “You! Move away from that door.”

  The figure turned toward him, reached for something at waist level. Zeerid did not hesitate. He pulled the trigger, and the muffled whump of the E-9 sounded like a polite cough.

  In near-perfect time with Zeerid pulling the trigger, the motion so fast that it was blurry, the figure whipped free a silver cylinder that grew a glowing green line and deflected the E-9’s bolt into the floor.

  Before Zeerid squeezed off another shot, the figured cocked its head and deactivated the lightsaber.

  “Zeerid?”

  A woman.

  Zeerid did not lower his weapon or his temperature. He could not make sense of the lightsaber. A Jedi?

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The figure threw back her hood to reveal long sandy hair and the warm green eyes that Zeerid had never forgotten. The heat and tension went out of him in a rush.

  “Aryn? Aryn Leneer? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” she said. She motioned at the door to Nat’s apartment. “I thought I would try your sister-in-law’s—”

  “Are you alone? Did someone follow you?”

  She looked taken aback by the rapid-fire questions. “I … yes. No.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Luck. I remembered your sister-in-law’s name. I hoped she could help me find you.”

  “Stay there,” he said, and hurried back down the hall to the stairwell. He looked down and saw nothing and no one. Whoever had been on the stairs was gone.

  He told himself that it was probably just a resident coming home.

  He turned to find himself staring into Aryn’s concerned face. She looked much as she had when she’d held him while he cried over Val’s death.

  “What is wrong?” she asked.

  No doubt she could feel his apprehension.

  “Probably nothing. I’m overreacting, I think.”

  She smiled her smile but he saw something new in her eyes—a hardness. He did not need to be a Force-user to know that something was different.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “I just saw you on the ’Net. I thought you were on Alderaan.”

  A veil fell over her eyes and closed her off. He’d never seen it before, not from her, though he imagined his own expression looked much the same when he was working.

  “I was. That’s part of what I want to talk about. I need your help. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “This really is not a good time, Aryn.”

  “It’s important.”

  He had a flash of fear, thinking the Jedi had caught wind of the engspice delivery, had learned that he was to deliver it, and were intent on stopping him. But she said nothing about engspice.

  “It’s a personal issue, Z-man. Not something for the Order.”

  He breathed easier, even smiled at how silly his name sounded when she said it. Maybe it sounded that silly all the time. He shot a glance back down the hall at Nat’s apartment.

  Closed and secure, like all the other doors in the hall. A blaster shot and an activated lightsaber had not even merited an open door.

  He had to get them both out of there. It was no place for a child.

  Aryn touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

  He let out a long breath and tried to shed some stress. He was overreacting. Since arriving on planet, he had taken all of the precautions he usually took. No one he didn’t want to know knew of his relationship to Arra or Nat, much less where they lived. Aryn had stumbled on him only because they were friends from way back and she knew Nat’s name. The man in the park had probably been nobody, just a random passerby.

  “No, I’m all right. I do know a place we can talk. For old times’ sake. But I may have to cut it short. I’m expecting a call.”

  Zeerid could get the ping from Oren at any time.

  They walked out to the street and waited with a small crowd for a public speeder bus to arrive. They boarded and it pulled away. Zeerid watched Nat and Arra’s building vanish below them. He tried to fill the pit in his stomach by telling himself that they would be fine.

  Vrath lingered outside the stairwell entrance to Zeerid’s apartment. His tracker had shown him Zeerid’s location before he’d gotten halfway up the stairs.

  An ambush or just extreme cautiousness?

  Leaning against the crumbling brick wall, he eyed the tracker. It showed Zeerid moving away on the speeder bus. Vrath had seen the woman who had accompanied him. It wasn’t Nat.

  He activated his comlink and raised the rest of his team, all of whom were stationed at or near the Yinta Lake spaceport.

  “He’s mobile, on a speeder bus, heading in your direction. I’m en route.”

  Zeerid and Aryn rode the airbus in silence to a stop near the hulking, rusty geometry of the spaceport. From there, they walked the busy street to a casino Zeerid knew, the Spiral Galaxy, where Nat worked. An overpowering sea of smoke, shouts, flashing lights, and music greeted them. No one would overhear them there.

  Zeerid led Aryn to the bar area, found a corner table that allowed him a view of the rest of the room, and sat. He waved off the server before the young man ever reached their table. Aryn glanced around the casino, tiny furrows lining her brow. She looked to have aged ten years since he’d last seen her. He imagined he looked much the same to her, if not worse. He was surprised she had recognized him. But then, maybe
she hadn’t recognized him by sight so much as by feel.

  He leaned back in the chair and spoke loud enough to be heard over the ambient sound. “You said you needed my help?”

  She nodded, leaned forward to put her elbows on the table. She looked past him as she spoke, and he had the impression she was reciting something she had rehearsed. “I need to get to Coruscant as soon as possible.”

  He chuckled. “That makes two of us.”

  His response threw her off. “How do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Coruscant isn’t exactly Jedi-friendly at the moment.”

  “No. And this … isn’t sanctioned by the Order.”

  Her response threw him off. He’d never known Aryn to buck orders.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You’ll want to wait until the negotiations on Alderaan are completed, right? See how things shake out? In a week—”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “No? Why?”

  She sat back in her chair as if to open some distance between them, room for a lie maybe. “I need to get something from the Temple.”

  “What?”

  “Something personal.”

  He leaned forward, closing the gap between them, reducing the room for falsehoods. “Aryn, we haven’t seen each other in years. You show up out of a nebula and tell me you want my help to get to a world just conquered by the Empire and that getting you there isn’t sanctioned by the Jedi Order.”

  He let her stew in that for a moment before continuing. “Maybe I want to help you. Maybe I can.”

  She looked up at that, hope in her eyes.

  “You were there for me when I went through a tough time. But I need to understand what’s really happening here.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “I missed you and didn’t know it.”

  He felt his cheeks warm and tried to hide his discomfiture. Of course, he could hide nothing from her. She would feel the warmth her words put in him.

  She slid her chair forward and crossed her hands on the table. He was very conscious of how close her hands were to his. It seemed he had missed her, too.

  “The attack killed someone I cared about.”

  The sinking feeling he felt surprised him.

  “A husband?” Could Jedi even marry? He didn’t know.

  She shook her head. “My master. Ven Zallow.”

  “I’m sorry.” He touched her hand in sympathy and it put such a charge through him that he pulled away. Surprisingly, he did not see pain in her expression, but anger.

  “The Temple will have vids of the attack. I need to see how he died.”

  “It could’ve been bombs, Aryn. Anything.”

  She shook her head before he finished his sentence. “No. It was a Sith.”

  “You know this?”

  “I know it. And I want to see that Sith, know his name.”

  Insight dawned. “You want to kill him.”

  She did not gainsay it.

  He blew out a whistle. “Blast, Aryn, I thought you’d come here to arrest me.”

  “Arrest you? Why?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “No wonder the Order didn’t sanction your going to Coruscant. What would this do to the peace negotiations? You’re talking about assassinating someone.”

  The coldness in her eyes was new to him. “I’m talking about avenging my master. They murdered him, Zeerid. I will not let it stand. Do you think I don’t know exactly what I am doing? What it will cost?”

  “No, I don’t think you know.”

  “You’re wrong. I want help from you, Zeerid, not a lecture. Now, I need to get to Coruscant. Will you help?”

  He’d been working alone since he’d mustered out. Preferred it that way. But working with Aryn had always felt … right. If he was going to fly with anyone, it would be her.

  His comm buzzed. He checked it, saw an encrypted message from Oren, decrypted it.

  Goods are aboard Fatman. Leave immediately. Cargo is hot.

  He looked across the table at Aryn. “Your timing is good.”

  Her eyes formed a question.

  “I’m flying to Coruscant, too. Right now.”

  “What?” She looked dumbfounded.

  He pushed back his chair and stood. “Coming?”

  She stayed in her chair. “You’re flying to Coruscant? Now?”

  “Right now.”

  She stood. “Then yes, I’m coming.”

  “Whatever you flew here, you need to leave it. We’re taking only my ship.”

  Aryn tapped on her comlink and spoke over the sound of the casino.

  “Tee-six, put the Raven in lockdown. I am going offplanet. Monitor our usual subspace channel, and I will contact you when I can.”

  The droid’s answering beeps were lost to the cacophony.

  They started picking their way through the crowd.

  Aryn took him by the bicep and pulled his ear to her mouth. “It can’t be coincidence, you know. Consider the timing. The Force brought us here at this moment so that we can help each other. You see that, don’t you?”

  At a table near them, bells rang and a Zabrak raised his arms high, shouting with joy.

  “Jackpot!” the Zabrak said. “Jackpot!”

  Zeerid decided that he had to tell her. He shouted over the noise. “If the Force brought us together, then the Force has an odd sense of humor.”

  Her eyes narrowed in a question. “What are you talking about?”

  He dived in. “Listen, what I’m doing makes what you’re doing look like charity work.”

  Her expression fell and her body leaned backward slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to give you another chance to ask that question before I answer it. Before you do, realize that I would make this run whether you came or not, Aryn. I am not proud of it, but I have to do it. Now, do you want to know?”

  “Yes,” she said, and blinked. “But later. Right now—and do not look around—there are people watching us.”

  An effort of will kept his eyes on her. Oren had told him the cargo was hot, but he didn’t realize it was that hot. He feigned a smile. “Where? How many?”

  “Two that I can see. A human male at the bar, brown jacket, long black hair. To my right, a human male in a long black coat and gloves.”

  “You sure?” He nodded as if he was agreeing with something she said.

  “Mostly.”

  “How do we play it?” he asked her.

  Funny how they so easily fell back into old roles. She giving the orders and he obeying them.

  “We play dumb and make for the spaceport. We’ll evaluate as we go. Then …”

  “Then?”

  Her hand went under her cloak, to the hilt of her lightsaber. “Then we improvise.”

  He took mental stock of all the weapons he bore and their location on his person.

  “Good enough,” he said, and they headed for the exit.

  The shuttle took Eleena and Malgus skyward to Malgus’s cruiser, Valor. Malgus stared out one of the viewports as they broke through the atmosphere. He felt Eleena’s eyes on him but did not turn to her. His thoughts were on the Force, on the Empire, and how the two seemed to be diverging before his eyes. The question for him was singular—what would he do about it?

  The pilot’s voice carried over the speaker. “Darth Malgus, Darth Angral wishes to speak to you.”

  Malgus cocked his head in a question. He looked to Eleena but she looked away, out a viewport at the receding surface of Coruscant.

  “Put him through.”

  The small vidscreen in the shuttle’s passenger compartment lit up and projected a holographic image of Darth Angral. He sat at the same desk in the Chancellor’s office from which he had previously lectured Malgus. Malgus wondered if Adraas remained there still.

  “My lord,” Malgus said, though the words felt false.

  “Darth Malgus, I see you have recovered your … companion. I am pleased for you.”
<
br />   “I am returning her to Valor, then I will return to the surface to assist—”

  Angral held up a hand and shook his head. “There is no need for that, old friend. Your presence on Coruscant is no longer necessary. Instead, I need you to command the blockade and ensure the safety of the hyperspace lanes.”

  “My lord, any naval officer could—”

  “But I am ordering you to do this, Darth Malgus.”

  Malgus stared at the image of Darth Angral for a long while before he trusted himself to answer. “Very well, Darth Angral.”

  He cut off the connection, and the image sank back into the screen.

  A headache rooted in the base of his skull. He could feel the veins in his head pulsing, each beat amplifying his disillusionment, his growing rage.

  He did not need to be skilled in political maneuvering to understand that Angral ordering him into an unimportant role was a way of sending the clear message that he was out of favor. Angral had used him just long enough to ensure the success of the sacking of Coruscant, and now he was being edged aside in favor of Lord Adraas. In the span of a day he had gone from the conqueror of Coruscant to a second-tier Darth.

  He glanced over at Eleena once more, wondering how much of it she understood.

  She did not look at him, just continued to look out the viewport.

  Pedestrians thronged the misty street outside the casino. The smell of the lake was strong: dead fish, other organic decay. Zeerid swept the crowd with his eyes, seeking anyone else that struck him as suspicious. He saw twenty men in the crowded street who might have been eyeing him.

  “I can’t make anyone in this crowd,” he said.

  Two drunk Houks staggered by, shouting a song in their native tongue. A young Bothan revved his swoop engine and blasted into the air. Ubiquitous aircar taxis lined the street. Private aircars and a public speeder bus flew above them.

  “Keep moving,” Aryn said. “No urgency, though.”