she was here. Her investigations had revealed that she wasn't the only one interested in the dead Jedi. A man with long, silver hair-some called him a mercenary, others a bounty hunter-had been here not two days earlier, asking the same questions she was. Since then, she had been following his tracks: talking to the people he spoke to, and charming, bribing, or threatening them into giving her the same information they had given him.
She now suspected she knew why Medd Tandar had come here in the first place. It was common knowledge among the miners that a small cache of jewelry had been uncovered during a dig, and that the Jedi had come to Doan in the hope of acquiring the find. Zannah could only think of one reason why a Jedi would be interested in a few trinkets discovered in a long-forgotten tomb on an insignificant Outer Rim world-her Master wasn't alone in his obsessive efforts to locate ancient Sith artifacts scattered across the galaxy.
At first she had assumed the man who had been asking about Medd before her had been another Jedi sent to complete the original mission. However, it quickly became clear from the reports of his use of terror and torture to extract information that he was not a Jedi or even someone working for the Jedi Order. The trail of these reports had ended at a dilapidated cantina in one of the seemingly infinite mining camps. But she found the establishment closed, and Quano, the Rodian proprietor, nowhere to be found. With no more eyewitnesses, Zannah decided to have a look around herself, hoping for further clues.
Night had fallen, casting everything in near blackness. She tried the door and discovered that someone had smashed the lock. Not surprising, given the poverty she had seen. Pushing her way in, she picked up the faint odor of decaying flesh. She cracked a glow stick from her belt, filling the room with its pale green light. She was just able to make out two bodies on the floor.
Crouching by the first one, she made a quick examination. Doan's dry, dusty heat-combined with the general lack of airflow through the cantina-had partially mummified the corpse, slowing the decomposition process. The cause of death was obvious: a blaster bolt to the chest. His own blaster was still clutched in his hand.
It was obvious he wasn't Quano; the body was plainly human. And he didn't fit the descriptions she had been given of the man she was following. Based on his clothes and large muscles, he was probably one of the miners. She found the second body the same: a dead miner, shot in the chest.
Continuing her examination of the scene, she noticed that the shelf behind the bar was empty-but clear circles in the dust showed that until very recently, dozens of bottles had stood there. Whoever had broken in must have stolen all the alcohol:and left the two bodies where they lay on the floor.
A thorough search of the room turned up no trace of either the Rodian or the silver-haired man.
At the sound of someone fumbling at the door, Zannah covered her glow stick with her cloak and crouched low to the ground, a perfect statue hidden-she hoped-by the darkness.
The door creaked open and a shadowy figure slowly picked its way through the tables toward the bar in the back. Zannah waited to make sure the intruder was alone, then stood up and cast her cloak aside, bathing the room in the light of her glow stick.
A Rodian stood frozen, staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.
'Quano, I presume?'
'Who you?' he asked, his barely passable Basic made even harder to understand by the panic in his voice. Then he noticed the empty shelf behind the bar, and his face scrunched up in sullen anger. 'You steal all Quano's booze.'
'I didn't steal anything. I just came here to ask you some questions,' she assured him.
The Rodian's shoulders slumped. Sighing, he sat down cross-legged on the ground, his head hanging despondently.
'More questions. You Jedi, too? Like other one?' He spoke with a tone of utter hopelessness, as if he realized he was doomed and had given up any hope of escaping his fate.
'A Jedi? You mean Medd Tandar? The Cerean?'
'No. The other one. Human. Long, white hair.'
'I'm looking for him,' Zannah admitted. 'But what makes you think he was a Jedi?'
'Him got lightsaber. Use it to give Quano this.'
The Rodian turned his head and pointed to his cheek. Moving slowly so as not to startle the obviously distraught fellow, Zannah approached until she was able to make out his scar. In the dim light of the glow stick she couldn't be sure, but the burn did appear to be consistent with that made by a lightsaber's blade.
She knew how to read people. The Rodian was like an abused pup, cowering as he waited for the next blow. Show him a little compassion, however, and he would react as if she had saved his life.
'He tortured you. You poor thing,' she cooed, feigning sympathy even as her mind churned on the identity of the mysterious white-haired man.
A Jedi would never harm someone without just cause. Whoever had done this wasn't one of the Order, but he did have a lightsaber. And he was skilled enough to wound Quano without accidentally slicing off half his head. She had heard tales of Dark Jedi-Jedi Knights who had fallen away from the teachings of their Masters to embrace the power of the dark side. Was it possible the man she sought was one of these?
More importantly, did Bane already know this? Her Master often kept secrets from her, and she had learned to always assume he knew more than he said. But if he knew there was a Dark Jedi on Doan, why had he sent Zannah to investigate? Was it some type of final test? Was she supposed to prove herself by finding and killing this potential rival? Or was Bane testing the white-haired man? If he proved strong enough to defeat Zannah, would he become her Master's new apprentice?
'Him wanted information,' Quano whimpered.
'I'm sorry, Quano,' she said, speaking softly as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, 'but I need information, too. I need to know what you told him.'
As she did so, she reached out with a gentle push of the Force, nudging the bartender's will ever so slightly so he would be more inclined to tell her what she wanted.
'Him you friend?'
'No,' Zannah assured him, using words to reinforce her subtle mind manipulation. 'He's not my friend.'
Maybe Bane was trying to force her hand, she thought; pushing her to act. Was he providing her with a suitable apprentice in the hope it would compel her to challenge him for leadership of the Sith?
'You want kill him?' Quano asked, his voice rising excitedly.
'That is a possibility,' she answered, giving him a warm smile. That, or make him my apprentice:assuming he doesn't kill me. 'But I've got to find him first.'
'Him no here no more. Him go two days ago. Leave Doan.'
'He came here looking for something, didn't he?'
Quano nodded. 'Stuff miner dig up. Him take it. Kill miners. That when Quano escape.'
'And you've been hiding ever since,' Zannah guessed. 'So why did you come back to the cantina?'
The Rodian hesitated, his bug eyes darting nervously between Zannah's face and the small wrist-mounted blaster peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her cloak.
'I'm not going to hurt you, Quano,' she promised. 'I'm not like him,' He enjoys hurting people. I only hurt people if I see some way to profit from their suffering. 'I don't think he's coming back.' Not if he's got the talismans. 'But I need to know something else, Quano. When that man left Doan, where did he go?'
She saw the Rodian flinch before answering. 'Quano not know. For trueness.'
'I believe you,' she said, reaching out to gently pat his hand. 'But I bet you know people who could help me find out, don't you?'
The bartender shifted uncomfortably, but another gentle push with the Force overcame his reluctance. 'Quano has friend at spaceport. Him maybe find out.'
'Can we go see him?'
'You want go now?'
Zannah smiled again, knowing it would help sustain the rapport she had established. 'You can grab your credits from the safe first, if you want.'
It was a two-kilometer walk from Quano's cantina to the nearest ground-shuttle station, a fifteen-minute wait for the shuttle to arrive, and then a forty-minute ride before they reached the spaceport. By the time they arrived it was well past midnight, and the Doan spaceport-never busy even during peak hours-was empty except for a few individuals assigned to work the graveyard shift.
Unlike the highly regulated ports on Ciutric, the authorities at the Doan docks didn't bother doing any
