[Darth Maul] by Shadow Hunter (Michael Reaves)

Author:Shadow Hunter (Michael Reaves) [Hunter, Shadow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-03-10T13:37:07+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Lorn didn’t like the Jedi Padawan. This fact would hardly be surprising to anyone who knew him even casually-which was how pretty much everybody knew him, these days-as he was not reticent about his feelings when the subject of the Jedi Knights arose. He had stated on more than one occasion to anyone who would listen that he considered them on a par with mynocks in terms of parasitic opportunism, and a notch or two beneath those energy-sucking space bats on the general scale of galactic evolution. “Shooting’s too good for them,” he once told I-Five. “In fact, dumping them all in a Sarlacc’s pit to marinate in gastric juices for a thousand years is too good for them, but it’ll do until something worse comes along.” He had never told anyone why he felt this way. In his present circle of acquaintances only I-Five knew, and the droid would never divulge the secret of Lorn’s bitterness to anyone.

And now, thanks to a truly ironic twist of fate, here he was almost literally stun-cuffed to a Jedi and dependent on her to save him from the murderous inten-t ions of a Sith-a member of an order sprung from the Jedi millennia ago. It seemed that, no matter which way he turned, the self-styled galactic guardians were there to complete the ruination of his life that they had started.

Lorn felt the bitterness growing within his breast as he trudged along through the subterranean tunnel following I-Five and Darsha Assant. It certainly hadn’t taken her long at all to settle into that sanctimonious holier-than-thou attitude that he despised so much. They were all alike, with their sackcloth fashion sense and their austere asceticism, mouthing empty platitudes about the greater good. He much preferred dealing with the street scum; they at least were villains without the taint of hypocrisy.

Lorn was under no illusions about the treatment he would receive when he once again entered the Jedi Temple. Forget about any sort of reward; he and I-Five would be lucky to get protection against the Sith while the council debated how they could best make use of this windfall of information. He had no doubt that they would find a way to make it serve their purposes, as they were able to do with everything they came in contact with.

Everything and everyone.

This underground passage they were traveling was no more dark and torturous than the labyrinth of his memories and hatred. He wondered for the dozenth time why he hadn’t just let Assant fall when the speeder bike explosion had hurled her from the skycar. He couldn’t even excuse it on the grounds that he had needed her to pilot the vehicle; I-Five was perfectly capable of that. No, it had been that most pernicious of impulses, one that Lorn thought he’d managed to eradicate within himself long ago: a humanitarian motive. The memory of what he had done bothered him immensely. He had made it a policy during the last five years to stick his neck out for nobody, with the exception of I-Five.

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