"You mean you want to help the planet," Ferus said pointedly.

Anakin felt his face grow hot. Of course Ferus was right.

Ferus gave the correct Jedi response. Anakin's first concern should be the people of Radnor, not his need to impress Obi-Wan. He had just expressed himself badly. He had blurted out what was in the back of his mind, not what was in the front of it. He whished he wouldn't keep running into the fact that Ferus took a more Jedi approach to action.

"What are you thinking, Ferus?" Darra asked curiously.

"We need to examine this hideout," Ferus said. "I have a feeling it has something to teach us."

"What can it teach us?" Anakin asked. "That the raiders like riches?"

Darra ignored Anakin. "Remember what we heard? Evermore and Acadi and Montwin are probably street names. They're not just striking randomly. They have a plan."

Ferus nodded. "If we cab figure out their plan, we can be ahead of them instead of behind them."

"There's got to be a datapad here somewhere," Tru said, rising. "They left too fast to destroy their records."

Anakin trailed after the others. His whole body itched to follow the raiders. He always felt more comfortable in physical activity. He always ached to move. But he hoped he was wise enough to realize when it was better to wait.

He just wasn't crazy about the fact that Ferus was the one to suggest it.

He knew what Obi-Wan would say. It didn't matter who suggested it. The outcome was the goal. Resentment was ego. He knew all this, but it did not chase the resentment away.

You can feel the emotion, Obi-Wan would say. Just let it go.

Anakin gritted his teeth. I'm trying, Master.

"Over here!" Darra called. "I found their holofiles."

The files had been concealed in a durasteel bin just like countless others that lined the walls.

"How did you find them," Anakin asked.

Darra was already accessing the files. "I figured that they had been consulting the files while they were talking.

The slight delay before they came to attack us meant they were concealing them. They had to be nearby."

"Good thinking," Tru said admiringly.

The Padawans bent over the files. Darra expertly accessed one after the other.

"These are lists of assets held by individual families,"

Anakin said. "How could they have gotten them?"

"Look at these notations," Tru said. "They're coded EcC."

"Emergency Command Center," Darra murmured.

"These files were drawn us so that if the entire planet had to be evacuated, there would be records of what Radnorans left behind," Tru said. "That way they could recover everything later."

"So the raiders must have stolen these files," Ferus added.

"Or bribed someone on the evacuation team to hand them over," Darra said. "Look at this. This is what they were talking about. They have a list of how the evacuation is going to take place. The first group to be evacuated will be the bloc between Evermore and Acadi. As soon as those families evacuate, the raiders will move in and clean them out."

Tru gave a low whistle. "That's some organized system.

But why are they looting now?"

"Easy answer?" Darra shrugged. "Because they can."

Anakin nodded. "The city is falling apart and they see an opportunity. But are they counting on coming back to the planet for this stuff, or do they have plans to take it with them? It would be hard to smuggle it aboard the evacuation ship. The families are only allowed what they can carry.

Tru reached around his head with one flexible arm to scratch his ear thoughtfully. "The raiders said something about 'they' had better come through on their promise to move the stuff. Who's 'they'?"

"Maybe they have a contact who will help them smuggle it,"

Ferus said, frowning.

Darra looked up at the, her face tined blue by the light cast by the holofile. "The important thing is that they have access to all the evacuation orders. That means someone on the inside is helping them."

"Well, at least we know exactly what to do next," Anakin said. "We have to find out who."

He looked over at Ferus. He expected his fellow Padawan to argue, but Ferus nodded.

"And why," Ferus added. "That might be the most important question of all."

Chapter Nine

It wasn't hard work, Obi-Wan told himself. It was just heartbreaking.

He and Siri moved through a landscape that reminded him of a desert moon. Yes, there were buildings. Homes. Businesses.

Shops. But the eerie absence of lives being lived made the city a vast echo of sorrow.

They found the dead and they found the still-living. They brought the sick to the overcrowded med center, where medication only slowed the process of dying. Curi had had hopes that the medication could effect some cures, but so far it had not. The toxin did not respond.

Every so often Obi-Wan and Siri would see Ry-Gaul and Soara on their rounds. The four Jedi would simply nod at one another. There was nothing to say. No notes to compare.

There was only death and the dying.

On their last trip to the med center, Siri watched as Obi- Wan deactivated his comlink after another unsuccessful effort to contact Anakin. "You seem worried," she said.

Obi-Wan thought carefully how to reply. He didn't want Siri to think he didn't trust Anakin. How could she understand? Her Padawan was Ferus, who Obi-Wan knew as an assured, steady Jedi student. No one understood his brilliant, openhearted, complex Padawan like he did.

So yes, I'm worried, Obi-Wan thought. But I will only admit that to myself. I don't worry that Anakin will fail.

Or that he will let down the Order. But that he will try too hard. That he will go too far. That he will assume he can do what he cannot.

"I'd rather he was by my side," he said. "That's all."

Siri nodded, her clear blue eyes holding a hint of skepticism. She knew he was not telling her the complete truth. Obi-Wan turned away. Sometimes old friends were hard to have around.

Suddenly, Curi hailed them from the steps of the med center. Her eyes were red-rimmed behind her bio-iso mask.