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Автор Майкл Ривз

Star Wars Coruscant Nights Book 3 Patterns of Force by Michael Reaves Dramatis personae

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Darth Vader; Sith Lord and Emperor Palpatine's enforcer Dejah Duare; empath, ex-partner of light artist Ves Volette (Zeltron female)

Den Dhur; ex-journalist (Sullustan male)

Haninum Tyk Rhinann; ex-assistant to Darth Vader (Elomin male) I-5YQ; sentient protocol droid

Jax Pavan; Jedi Knight (human male)

Kajin Savaros; untrained Force adept (human male) Laranth Tarak; Gray Paladin (Twi'lek female) Pol Haus; police prefect (Zabrak male)

Probus Tesla; Inquisitor (human male)

Thi Xon Yimmon; leader of the Whiplash (Cerean male) Tuden Sal; Whiplash associate (Sakiyan male)

Your focus determines your reality. - Master Qui-Gon Jinn

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .

Prologue

The voices rose and fell around him, but he paid them little attention now.

He had tried to be attentive initially, but hearing the word smuggled had spun Haninum Tyk Khinann off into his own private mental debriefing, on a mystery he sought to unravel for reasons of his own. The case the others were discussing-the murder of an insignificant being involved in smuggling a particularly nasty variety of spice-was of importance only to the local prefect of police, Pol Haus. Which was another way of saying that, cosmically as well as locally, it was of no importance at all.

Rhinann was almost tempted to stick his fingers in his hairy ears to block out the grating sound of the prefect's voice. There had been a time, back when he'd been the personal aide-de-camp to Darth Vader himself, when even letting such a thought cross his mind, even allowing the existence of admission of such poor etiquette, would have made all four of his stomachs turn acidic. Now he honestly had to admit that he didn't care. He wished he had self-sealing earflaps like the Lesser Houdoggin of Klatooine, so that he could shut our the sound of the prefect as easily as closing his eyes allowed him to blot away the offensive sight of him.

A poorer excuse for a Zabrak he could not imagine. In his considerable experience as an Imperial functionary he had never known a member of that species who was so impossibly slovenly. The police prefect's hair-what there was of it-was in wild disarray, as if he had run his fingers through it repeatedly; his clothing was disheveled; his posture was relaxed to the point of slouching; his heavy-lidded eyes made him look as if he were about to fall asleep.

He recalled hearing a rumor once to the effect that the Elomin-his people-were the descendants of a group of Zabrak who had colonized the surface of Elom ages ago. Being in the prefect's presence made him want to find whatever bescumbered ninnyhammer had started that calumny and hurl him into the nearest sun.

Rhinann sat farther back in the formchair of his workstation, noting sourly that his mind, like a child lost in a carnival labyrinth, had wandered even farther from the meander it had originally taken. He suspected that he was edging ever closer to losing his sanity. Not surprising, considering the company he kept.