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had come into contact with had been more concerned with what she could bring to them in practical terms than with her beauty, or,
for that matter, with any true personal feelings for her. As Queen of Naboo and now as Senator, Padme was well aware that she
was attractive to men in ways deeper than physical attraction, in ways deeper than any emotional bond.
Or perhaps not deeper than the latter, she told herself, for she could not deny the intensity in Anakin's eyes as he had looked at
her.
But what did it mean?
She saw him again, in her thoughts. And clearly. Her mental eye roamed over his lean and strong frame, over his face, tight with
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the intensity that she had always admired, and yet with eyes sparkling with joy, with mischief, with. . .
With longing?
That thought stopped the Senator. Her hands slipped down to her sides, and she sat there, staring at herself, judging her own ap-
pearance as Anakin might.
After a few long moments, Padme shook her head, telling herself that it was crazy. Anakin was a Jedi now. That was their dedi-
cation and their oath, and those things, above all else, were things Padme Amidala admired.
How could he even look at her in such a manner?
So it was all her imagination.
Or was it her fantasy?
Laughing at herself, Padme lifted her brush to her hair again, but she paused before she had even begun. She was wearing a silky
white nightgown, and there were, after all, security cams in her room. Those cams had never really bothered her, since she had al-
ways looked at them clinically.
Security cams, with guards watching her every move, were a fact of her existence, and so she had learned to go about her daily
routines, even the private ones, without a second thought to the intrusive eyes.
But now she realized that a certain young Jedi might be on the other end of those lenses.
Chapter Seven
Clad in gray armor that was somewhat outdated, burned from countless blaster shots, but still undeniably effective, the bounty
hunter stood easily on the ledge, a hundred stories and more up from the Coruscant street. His helmet, too, was gray, except for a
blue ridge crossing his eyes and running down from brow to chin. His perch seemed somewhat precarious, considering the wind at
this height, but to one as agile and skilled as Jango, and with a penchant for getting himself into and out of difficult places, this was
nothing out of the ordinary.
Right on time, a speeder pulled up near the ledge and hovered there, Jango's associate, Zam Wesell, nodded to him and climbed
out, stepping lithely onto the ledge in front of a couple of bright advertisement windows. She wore a red veil over the bottom half
of her face. This was not a statement of modesty or fashion. Like everything else she wore, from her blaster to her armor to her
other concealed and equally deadly weapons, Zam's veil was a practical implement, used to hide her Clawdite features. Clawdites
were not a trusted species, for obvious reasons.
"You know that we failed?" Jango asked, getting right to the point. "You told me to kill those in the Naboo starship," Zam said.
"I hit the ship, but they used a decoy. Those who were aboard are all dead."
Jango fixed her with a smirk, and didn't bother to call her words a dodge.
"We'll have to try something more subtle this time. My client is getting impatient. There can be no more mistakes." As he fi-
nished, he handed Zam a hollow, transparent tube containing a pair of whitish centipedelike creatures as long as his forearm.
"Kouhuns," he explained. "Very poisonous."
Zam Wesell lifted the tube to examine the marvelous little murderers more closely, her black eyes sparkling with excitement, and
her cheekbones lifting as her mouth widened beneath the veil. She looked back at Jango and nodded.
Certain that she understood, Jango nodded and started around the corner toward his waiting speeder. He paused before stepping
in, and looked back at his hired assassin.
"There can be no mistakes this time," he said.
The Clawdite saluted, tapping the tube containing the deadly kouhuns to her forehead.
"Tidy yourself up," Jango instructed, and he headed away.
Zam Wesell turned back to her own waiting speeder and pulled off her veil. Even as she lifted the cloth, her features began to
morph, her mouth tightening, her black eyes sinking back into shapely sockets, and the ridges on her forehead smoothing. In the
time it took her to unhook her veil, she had already assumed a shapely and attractive female human form, with dark and sensuous
features. Even her clothing seemed to fit her differently, flowing down gracefully from her face.
Off to the side, Jango nodded approvingly and sped away. As a Clawdite, a changeling, Zam Wesell did bring some advantages
to the trade, he had to admit.
The vast Jedi Temple sat on a flat plain. Unlike so many of Coruscant's buildings, monuments of efficiency and spare design,
this building itself was a work of art, with many ornate columns and soft, rounded lines that drew in the eye and held it. Bas-reliefs
and statues showed in many areas, with lights set at varying angles to distort the shadows into designs of mystery.
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Inside, the Temple was no different. This was a place of contemplation, a place whose design invited the mind to wander and to
explore, a place whose lines themselves asked for interpretation. Art was as much a part of what it was to be a Jedi Knight as was
warrior training. Many of the Jedi, past and present, considered art to be a conscious link to the mysteries of the Force, and so the
sculptures and portraits that lined every hall were more than mere replicas-they were artistic interpretations of the great Jedi they
represented, saying in form alone what the depicted Masters might speak in words.
Mace Windu and Yoda walked slowly down one polished and decorated corridor, the lights low, but with a brightly illuminated
room in the distance before them.
"Why couldn't we see this attack on the Senator?" Mace pondered, shaking his head. "This should have been no surprise to the
wary, and easy for us to predict."
"Masking the future is this disturbance in the Force," Yoda replied. The diminutive Jedi seemed tired. Mace understood well the
source of that weariness. "The prophecy is coming true. The dark side is growing."
"And only those who have turned to the dark side can sense the possibilities of the future," Yoda said. "Only by probing the dark
side can we see."
Mace spent a moment digesting that remark, for what Yoda referred to was no small thing. Not at all. Journeys to the edges of
the dark side were not to be taken lightly. Even more dire, the fact that Master Yoda believed that the disturbance all the Jedi had
sensed in the Force was so entrenched in the dark side was truly foreboding.
"It's been ten years and the Sith still have not shown themselves," Mace remarked, daring to say it aloud. The Jedi didn't like to
even mention the Sith, their direst of enemies. Many times in the past, the Jedi had dared hope that the Sith had been eradicated,
their foul stench cleansed from the galaxy, and so they all would have liked to deny the existence of the mysterious dark Force-
users.
But they could not. There could be no doubt and no denying that the being who had slain Qui-Gon Jinn those ten years before on
Naboo was a Sith Lord.
"Do you think the Sith are behind this present disturbance?" Mace dared to ask.
"Out there, they are," Yoda said with resignation. "A certainty that is." Yoda was referring to the prophecy, of course, that the
dark side would rise and that one would be born who would bring balance to the Force and to the galaxy. Such a potential chosen [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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