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Warmaster, we think too often in terms of dualism: Jedi or Sith, light or dark, right or wrong. But there are three sides to this blade, not two, opposed and similar at the same time. The third edge is the Mandalorian. All three sides care nothing for caste or species, only adherence to a code that unites. The Mandalorians remain the most formidable enemy of the Jedi: but the Sith are not always their allies. The Mandalorians even worshipped war itself, then simply turned their backs on their god. You might begin to understand them one day.

Coruscant, 24 A.B.Y.: lowest level, in a quarter where nobody in their right mind would venture at night.

Boba Fett leveled the blaster and sighted up.

"You can run," he said. "But you'll only die tired."

His voice rasped through an amplifier. He never needed to shout: he could always be heard. His target—a Rodian counterfeiter called Wac Bur, who was unusually overweight for his species—had obliged him by running in ever-more-desperate maze-like circles in the depths of the quarter and had now found himself in a blind alley.

Wac meant lucky in Rodian. Wac Bur was not a lucky example of his kind, not at all.

"Dead or alive," Fett reminded him. The thermal imager of his blaster optics picked out Wac helpfully radiating heat under a pile of discarded packing cases. "Dead's easier. Come on. I'm a busy man."

The voice under the cases was muffled and pathetic. "Why are you doing this to me? I've never messed with you, Fett."

"I know," Fett said. "But you palmed off fake art on Gebbu. Hutts are very touchy about that."

It was just like old times. His cloned leg, courtesy of his former Kaminoan guardian Taun We, was still holding up fine in the chase. Fett never thought of himself as being in any kind of mood, good or bad, but this was as close to noticeably good as he'd been in a long time. He almost felt as if the future might hold something positive. He hadn't had that sense of general optimism since childhood.

The alley was fifteen meters wide and stretched twenty meters ahead of him, with no exits: it was just a box with a terrified Rodian rattling loose in it. A quick scan for weapons—there was no point being careless about this—showed that Wac had a hold-out blaster that wouldn't trouble him. He walked slowly toward the rustling, shivering crates.

"Get a move on," Fett said, checking the chrono in his HUD.

"You haven't got a scrap of morality in you." Wac's insult was rich coming from a criminal forger. "It's not like Gebbu's a victim. Why don't you go after real criminals?"

"Because Gebbu thinks you're special. Are you coming with me or not?"

The packing cases rustled. Wac didn't emerge. It was an answer of sorts.

"Okay, nothing personal," Fett said, and raised his blaster to concentrate on the thermal-imaging target, hold his breath as he had so many times before, and squeeze…

Bar Jaraniz, Nar Shaaddaa: Hutt space, 24 A.B.Y.

The infidels call it preparing the battlefield.

This is the careful, patient work before an attack to ease the path for the army of the faithful that follows. I prepare well: I leave nothing to chance. I'm Nom Anor, executor, and my task is infiltration and destabilization.

And I seek allies in this filthy place.

Copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd.