“Is this not a public street?” Lorana asked.
“You don’t belong here,” the larger growled, taking a step toward her and fingering his ax restlessly. “What are you looking for?”
“What could be here that anyone would look for?” she countered, feeling her heartbeat starting to pick up. This was it.
Somehow, though she wasn’t sure exactly how, she knew beyond a doubt that she’d found the threat that Riske had been trying to locate.
The question now was what she should do about it.
Because these two Brolfi—or even these two plus the one she’d been following—were merely the edge of the grove. Whipping out her lightsaber would put her no closer to learning the details of the plot or who ultimately was behind it. What she really needed was for them to take her to the actual leaders.
And for them to do‘ that, they would have to think she was harmless.
“Never mind,” she said, taking as a step backward, staying close to the hedge beside her. “If you want me to go, I’ll go.”
“Not so fast,” the smaller Brolf said, apparently emboldened by her sudden apparent nervousness. “What’s your hurry?”
“No hurry,” Lorana said. She took another step backward, hoping she wasn’t getting too close to the end of this particular section of hedge. “I’m just ready to leave, that’s all.”
She threw a glance to the side, wishing she knew which of the dilapidated house rings around them the two Brolfi had come out of.
Apparently, her glance was close enough. “Get her, Vissfil,” the shorter Brolf snapped, swinging up his blaster and pointing it nervously. “She knows.”
“I don’t know anything,” Lorana protested, taking a final step back as Vissfil strode toward her, his ax held high.
“Please—don’t hurt me.” She lifted her hands toward the ax as if to ward off an expected blow.
And with Vissfil’s full attention on her uplifted hands, and his body blocking his companion’s view, she stretched out with the Force, sliding her lightsaber from inside her tunic and shoving it into concealment inside the hedge beside her.
“Get her comlink,” the smaller Brolf ordered as Vissfil shifted his ax to one hand and pulled her robe partially open with the other.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Vissfil growled. For all his size and gruffness, he was clearly uncomfortable as he ran his hand gingerly over her body. He found her comlink and stuffed it inside his own tunic; then, almost as an afterthought, he relieved her of her belt with its attached food and equipment pouches.
“No weapons,” he announced, taking a step back from her.
“What do we do with her?”
“Take her to Defender, I guess,” the other said. Hegestured her toward the ring house she’d glanced toward earlier.
“He’ll know what to do. This way, human.”
They were crossing the street when Lorana heard a soft tone from behind her, and glanced back to see the smaller Brolf draw a comlink from his tunic. “What?” he muttered.
She couldn’t hear the voice coming from the comlink, but it was impossible to miss the sudden spike in the Brolf’s tension level. “Right,” he muttered, then put the instrument away. “Change of plans,” he announced, stepping close to Lorana and pressing the muzzle of his blaster against her back. “We’re going to that house over there.” He pointed to a blue house to their left.
Lorana felt her throat tighten. The indicated house had the look of a place that had been abandoned for years. The only reason to take her there would be for a serious interrogation, or to shut her up permanently.
On the other hand, they didn’t know who they had here. She could play along and wait for her opportunity, watching for the warning signs that the game was nearly over.
With the Brolf’s intent masked by his overall anxiety, the stun blast that rippled across her back came as a complete surprise. Before she could even begin to run through the countermeasures she’d been trained in, the nerve-deadening wave swept over her, plunging her into darkness.
“Well?” the Brolf who called himself Patriot growled.
Doriana didn’t bother to answer. Standing at the window, he watched as Vissfil and his brother worked their way up the uneven walkway toward the dilapidated blue house, carrying the unconscious form of Padawan Lorana Jinzler between them.
And the two idiots had nearly brought her here. If Doriana hadn’t been watching out the window and seen them coming…
He waited until the group had disappeared inside.
Then, slowly and deliberately, he turned to face Patriot. “If this is an example of your security,” he said, measuring out each word,
“it’s a wonder you’re not all pinioned to shame posts by now.”
“There is no problem,” Patriot insisted. “It’s only a single human, who had no time to alert any friends she might have.”
“Any weapons?”
“None,” Patriot said.
Doriana frowned. “None?”
“We are not children, Defender,” Patriot growled. “We know how to search someone for weapons.”
“Of course you do,” Doriana said, feeling his skin prickling. Jinzler must have left her lightsaber with Kenobi and Sky-walker, knowing it would be a dead giveaway as to who she really was. Did that mean the other two were already nearby, waiting an opportune moment to move in?
Regardless, it was well past time to wrap this up. “Do you have the final two burst thrusters?” he asked.
“Jhompfi just arrived with them,” Patriot said. “He’s passed them to Migress, who’s already on his way to where the missile is being prepared. They’ll be installed within the hour.”
“Jhompfi being the one the human female was following, I presume?”
Patriot’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve already said she can do us no damage. We’ll be leaving this house ring as soon as you fulfill your part of the bargain. All is well.”
“Of course,” Doriana said. All was well; except that Jinzler could identify Jhompfi by face, and had obviously seen him with the thrusters…
He took another calming breath, keeping his tirade to himself. Yes, Patriot and his fellow conspirators were idiots. But then, he’d known that going in.
“I still don’t understand why so many thrusters are needed,” Patriot said, a hint of suspicion creeping into his voice.
“A normal missile would require only two.”
“A normal missile would arc high over the marketplace, where Argente’s security forces could destroy it at their leisure.”
Doriana pointed out. “The weapon I’ve designed for you is known as a slinker: a projectile that will fly at waist height directly through the archway of the administration building, find its way along the corridors to the conference room, and there explode, destroying the traitors and would-be traitors alike.”
“So you claim,” Patriot said, his tone still suspicious.
“I’ve never heard of a weapon that was able to find its way through a building without a full droid control system.”
“That’s because no weapon you’ve heard of has had my special guidance system,” Doriana said, pulling a data card from his pocket. “It will locate the outer archway and seek out its targets, wherever they hide.”
“Without its sensor emissions being detected?” Patriot asked, taking the card carefully.
“Neither detected nor jammed,” Doriana assured him.
“It doesn’t rely on sensor frequencies the security forces will be monitoring.”
In actual fact, of course, the card didn’t rely on sensors at all. It was nothing more than a geographically programmed course director that would take the missile on the precise path Doriana himself had systematically paced out on his last trip to Barlok. And far from seeking out the negotiators, if C’baoth suddenly decided to hold the meeting in a different room tomorrow morning, the missile would find itself going to the wrong place entirely. That would be embarrassing, not tomention disastrous.