"And I am not without some remorse for my behavior. As a gesture of apology, I'll raise my offer to eight thousand. Take it or leave it."

"Fifteen thousand. I'm cutting my own throat here."

"Ten thousand."

"Twelve." Zippa leaned back in midair, folding his spindly arms in a gesture of finality.

"Done," Lorn said. He had been ready to go as high as fifteen, but of course there was no reason for Zippa to know that. He pulled a thick wad of Republic credits from a belt compartment and began counting them. Most transactions uplevels were handled by electronic credit chips, but few people used the chips down here. Zippa brought the Holocron back into view and handed it to Lorn simultaneously with Lorn handing him the bills.

Lorn accepted the cube. "Well," he said, "it's been a pleasure doing-" He left the sentence unfinished when he saw that Bilk was now pointing a blaster directly at I-Five's recharge coupling. Zippa, his smile now decidedly unpleasant, floated forward and plucked the Holocron and the remainder of the credits from Lorn's hand.

"I'm afraid in this case the pleasure is all mine," the Toydarian said as both Lorn and I-Five raised their hands. Then Zippa's smile vanished, and the next words came out in a sinister hiss. "No one ever threatens me and lives to tell about it." One three-fingered hand made a pass before a sensor plate, and the booth door slid open. Til tell the proprietor that booth nine will be needing some extra cleaning," he said as he exited. "Hurry up, Bilk-I want to find another buyer for this item."

The booth door closed after Zippa's departure. It was impossible to tell if the piglike snout of the Gamorrean was smiling, but Lorn was pretty sure it was. "What's the galaxy coming to when you can't trust a Toydarian fence," he said to I-Five.

"Disgraceful," the droid agreed. "It just makes me want to… scream."

Lorn still had his hands raised, and now he quickly jammed his two index fingers into his ears as deeply as he could as a deafening high-pitched screech came from I-Five's vocabulator. Even with his ears plugged, the volume was excruciatingly painful. Bilk, caught with no defense, reacted exactly as they had hoped he would: he howled in pain and reflexively clapped both hands over his ears, dropping the blaster in the process.

I-Five stopped the scream, caught the weapon before it could hit the floor, and in another second was aiming it at Bilk. The Gamorrean either didn't notice this fact or was too enraged to care. Snarling, he lunged at Lorn and the droid.

The particle beam punched through Bilk's armored chest plate, seared its way through various internal organs, and exited between the shoulder blades. The beam's intense heat instantly cauterized the wound, stopping any visible bleeding-not that that mattered much to Bilk. He dropped to the floor like a sack of meat, which was essentially what he had become.

Lorn waved his hand over the exit plate, and the panel snapped open again. "Come on-before Zippa gets away!" he shouted to the droid as he charged through the lobby. The proprietor barely glanced up as they dashed by.

They both emerged into the dim light of the deadend street, Lorn now holding the blaster, which I-Five had tossed to him. But there was no sign of Zippa. No doubt he had heard I- Five's scream, realized Bilk's probable fate, and let his wings carry him out of sight as fast as possible.

Lorn slammed a fist against the graffiti-scarred wall. "Great," he groaned. "That's just great. Fifteen thousand credits and the cube gone. And I had someone on the hook to pay fifty thousand for an authentic Holocron."

"Perhaps if you hadn't committed that slight blunder earlier…"

Lorn turned and glared at I-Five, who continued, "But now may not be the most appropriate time to discuss it."

Lorn took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Dusk was falling fast. "Come on," he said. "We'd better get out of this sector before the Raptors find us. That would be the perfect end to the day."

"So," I-Five said as they started walking, "was it a real Jedi Holocron?"

"I didn't get a chance to examine it closely. But from the cuneiform on it, I'd say it was even rarer than that. I think it was a Sith Holocron." Lorn shook his head in disgust-mostly self-disgust. He knew I-Five was right; his burst of temper had probably precipitated Zippa's reneging. He'd dealt with the Toydarian before and never been double- crossed. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

But there was no point in self-flagellation. He was out of credits, and this was a bad part of Coruscant to be in with no assets. He needed a hustle, and he needed it soon-or he might very likely wind up as dead as Bilk.

Not at all a comforting thought.

Chapter 3

Darsha Assant stood before the Jedi Council. This was a moment of glory that she had dreamed about ever since she had begun her Padawan training. For nearly her entire life the world within the Jedi Temple had been, to all extents and purposes, her only world. During those years she had studied, had practiced weapon and bare-hand forms, had sat in meditation for hours on end, and-in many ways the most difficult task of all- had learned to sense and manipulate, to a small degree, the power of the Force.

And now she was close to the culmination of her training. Now she stood in the topmost chamber of the spire known as the Jedi Council, with its spectacular view of the planetary city spreading away in all directions to the far horizon. Seated in twelve chairs around the perimeter of the rotunda were the members of the council. Though she had seen them but rarely during her years of training-indeed, this was only the fourth time she had been in the Council Chamber-she knew their names and histories well from her studies. Adi Gallia. Plo Koon. Eeth Koth. The ancient and venerable Yoda. And, of course, Mace Windu, a senior member of the council. Dar-sha felt more than a little giddy just being in the presence of this august company.

At least she was not standing there alone. Behind her and slightly to one side was her mentor, Anoon Bondara. Master Bondara epitomized what Darsha hoped to become one day. The Twi'lek Jedi Master lived in the Force. Always still and complacent as a pool of unknown depth, he was nevertheless one of the best fighters in the order. His skill with a lightsaber was second to none. Darsha hoped that one day she might be able to exhibit a tenth of Anoon Bondara's adeptness.

Darsha had entered the order at the age of two, so like most of her comrades she had no real memories of any place other than the cloistered hallways and chambers of the Temple. Master Bondara had been parent and teacher to her for as long as she could remember. She found it hard to conceive of a life in which her Jedi mentor was not involved.

Yet now she was taking a big step into just that sort of life. For today she would be given the final assignment of her Padawan training. If she completed it successfully, she would be deemed worthy to assume the mantle of a Jedi Knight.