Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 3 by Jude Watson Page A

lately.”
    “But where is it?”
    Dex shrugged. “Don’t know. I haven’t needed her yet.”
    Ferus looked around. “There’s something you should know. The Empire is planning a strike down here. They want to wipe out the Erased. You’re all becoming bothersome to the new
regime. They want to control Coruscant all the way down to the crust.”
    Dex stroked his chin with his thick, gnarled fingers. “That won’t be easy, even for the Empire.”
    “Darth Vader has made it his personal mission.”
    “Darth Vader? That’s another story.” Dex frowned in thought, the deep furrows in his face collapsing until his eyes disappeared. Then he looked up again at Ferus.
“You’ll need a guide if you’re going below.”
    “Do you have someone in mind?”
    “Maybe, maybe. But first, a small parley with the gang.”
    Dex signaled to the others and they retired to another room in the back of the cantina. It turned out that the building was an old relay power station, and it still held
abandoned turbines. The Erased had hooked up their own power system here, and the air was filled with steam and a constant humming noise.
    “Makes it hard for surveillance to get a fix on voices,” Dex explained to Ferus and Trever. “You’ve got some here who are a little touchy about being
overheard.”
    Seven of the Erased sat at the table along with Dex. The others had melted away, not even willing to sit and talk with outsiders. The Whiphid stayed at the bar.
    The Erased all turned to Dexter to begin, and Ferus realized that he was a kind of unofficial leader here.
    “My friend here is Ferus Olin, a former Jedi.”
    “Jedi apprentice,” Ferus corrected.
    “And this is his friend...”
    Trever chimed in with his name.
    “Ferus tells me that the Empire is planning to try to eradicate us, and I trust his information,” Dexter continued. “We all knew it would happen. Just sooner than we’d
like.”
    “We’re not prepared for this,” the Svivreni said. He was stocky, with a narrow, furred face. His hair reached the back of his knees and was held back with a thick metal
band.
    “This is Curran Caladian,” Dexter told Ferus and Trever.
    “I knew a Tyro Caladian,” Ferus said. Tyro had been a friend of Obi-Wan’s, and a good source of information. Ferus had met him a number of times. He had been one of twenty-one
beings killed in the great Senate massacre, a few years before the Clone Wars began.
    “My cousin,” Curran said. “We started out as aides at the Senate together.” He gave Ferus a look of recognition. “You were there that day—at the massacre. You
saved Palpatine’s life.”
    Ferus nodded. He had reasons to remember this. He knew now that he couldn’t have possibly saved Palpatine’s life that day. Palpatine, he felt sure, had been supremely in control at
every moment, had perhaps even foreseen the attacks and turned them to his advantage. Certainly his courage under fire had netted him more supporters than ever.
    “Is that so?” Dex slapped four hands on his massive legs. “If only you’d moved a little to the left that day, Ferus, we all might be in better shape! Ha!”
    Ferus acknowledged the joke with a slight smile. He felt that nothing he could have done that day would have made a difference.
    “Back to the subject at hand,” Dex said. “Or hands. Seems to me we have some decisions to make. First, we should warn the others. Everyone is on their own, of course. But if
some of us can help, we should help.”
    “Help how?” The tall man who Dex had called a former officer spoke up.
    “Offer the Erased a place to go if they need it. Leave the orange district.”
    The man nodded. “We’ve got to go deeper.”
    “I agree with Hume,” Rhya Taloon said. Ferus could not connect the image of this woman, her silver hair twisted into horns, holsters crisscrossing her chest, with the image of a
Senator.
    “Our strength lies in our bond,” the Bothan Oryon said. “We should find a