The windowless cubicle, a cell carved from the city's massive ferrocrete foundation, was designed for single occupancy, but since Lorn's roommate was a droid, they were not particularly cramped for space. There were a couple of chairs, an extensible wall cot, a tiny refresher, and a kitchenette barely big enough for a nanowave and food preserver. The compartment was spotlessly clean-another advantage of having a droid around.

Lorn sat on the edge of the cot and stared at the floor. "Here's all you need to know about the Jedi," he announced.

"Oh, please-not again."

"They're a bunch of self-serving, sanctimonious elitists."

"I have this entire rant recorded, you know. I could play a holo at fast speed; it would save tune."

"'Guardians of the galaxy' — don't make me laugh. All they're interested in guarding is their way of life."

"If I were you-a hypothetical situation the mere mention of which threatens to overload my logic circuits-I'd stop obsessing over the Jedi and start thinking about where my next meal is coming from. I don't require nourishment, but you do. You need something hot to peddle-fast."

Lorn glared at the droid. "I never should have disconnected your creativity damper." He brooded for a while longer, then said, "But you're right- no point dwelling in the past. Got to look ahead. What we need is a plan-right now." And with those words he fell backwards onto the cot and began to snore loudly.

I-Five stared at his recumbent companion. "Random evolution should never have been entrusted with intelligence," the droid muttered.

Chapter 5

Darth Sidious was also thinking about the Jedi.

Their fire was dying in the galaxy; of that there was no doubt. For more than a thousand generations they had been the self-appointed paladins of the commonweal, but that was now coming to an end. And the pathetic fools, blinded by their own hypocrisy, could not see the truth of this.

It was right and fitting that this be so, just as it was right and fitting that the instrument of their downfall be the Sith.

The few pedants and scholars who even knew the name thought that the Sith were the "dark side" of the Jedi Knights. This was, of course, far too simplistic an evaluation. It was true that they had embraced the teachings of a group of rogue Jedi thousands of years ago, but they had taken that knowledge and philosophy far beyond the insular didacticism they had been given to start with. It was easy and convenient, as well, to demarcate the concept of the Force into light and dark; indeed, even Sidious had used such notions of duality in the training of his disciple. But the reality was that there was only the Force. It was above such petty concepts as positive and negative, black and white, good and evil. The only difference worthy of note was this: The Jedi saw the Force as an end in itself; the Sith knew that it was a means to an end.

And that end was Power.

For all their humble posturing and protestations of abdication, the Jedi craved power as much as anyone. Sidious knew this to be true. They claimed to be the servants of the people, but over the centuries they had increasingly removed themselves from contact with the very citizens they ostensibly served. Now they prowled the cloistered hallways and chambers of their Temple, mouthing their empty ideologies while practicing hubristic machinations designed to bring them more secular power.

As one half of the entire existing order of the Sith, Darth Sidious craved power, as well. It was true that he was operating covertly toward that end, but he was doing so out of necessity, not sophistry. After the Great Sith War, the order had been decimated. The lone remaining Sith had revived the order according to a new doctrine: one master and one apprentice. Thus it had been, and thus it would be, until that glorious day that saw the fall of the Jedi and the ascendancy of their ancient enemies, the Sith.

And that day was fast approaching. After centuries of planning and collusion, it was now almost here. Sidious was confident that he would see its culmination in his lifetime. There would come a day in the not too distant future when he would stand, triumphant, over the last Jedi's body, when he would see their Temple razed, when he would take his rightful place as ruler of the galaxy.

Which was why no loose ends, no matter how inconsequential, could be permitted. Perhaps Hath Monchar's absence had nothing to do with the Trade Federation's looming blockade of the planet Naboo. That was conceivable. But as long as the slightest chance existed that it did, the Neimoidian had to be found and dealt with.

Darth Sidious looked at a wall chrono. It was now slightly over fourteen standard hours since he had given Maul the assignment. He anticipated hearing from his apprentice shortly. The stakes were high, very high, but he had every confidence that Maul would perform the task with his customary ruthless efficiency. All would continue as planned, and the Sith would rise again.

Soon.

Very soon.

The Crimson Corridor was in the Third Quadrant of the Zi- Kree sector. It was one of the oldest areas of the vast planetary metropolis, overbuilt with skyscrapers and towers constructed long ago. The buildings towered so tall and so thick that some areas of the Corridor received only a few minutes of sunlight a day. Darsha remembered hearing legends of inbred subhuman tribes living in the near-total darkness of its depths for so long that they had gone genetically blind.

But darkness was the least of the dangers in the Corridor. Far worse were the things, both human and nonhuman, that lived in the darkness and preyed on the unwary.

Darsha piloted her skyhopper down through the miasmal fog that lay like a filthy blanket over the lowest levels. Why, she wondered, would anyone pick a neighborhood like this for a place in which to conceal informants? The answer was, of course, that it was the last place anyone would look.

The safe house-a barricaded block of ferrocrete and plasteel- was in a street that was not wide enough for her to set the skyhopper down. She landed in the closest intersection, got out, and instructed the autopilot to take the craft up twenty meters and remain in hover mode there. That way it was more likely to be there when she got back.

There were a few glow sticks in protective wired cages set here and there on the buildings, but after centuries of use they were so weak that they did little to relieve the gloom. As soon as Darsha disembarked from her vehicle she was set upon by beggars supplicating for food and money. At first she tried the ancient Jedi technique of clouding their minds, but there were too many of them, and most of them had brains too addled by privation and various illegal chemicals to respond to the suggestion. She gritted her teeth and pushed her way though the forest of filthy waving arms, tentacles, and various other appendages.