"I'm anything but tired, Master." He regarded the display screen for a moment. "I've found us a good place." As if under the guidance of droids in the hangar traffic stations, the pod settled on its quartet of disk- shaped landing gear. The two Jedi fell silent while they watched the vidcam feeds. After a long moment, a pair of human males emerged from Cohl's pod, oxygen masks covering their faces and disrupter rifles cradled in their arms.

"You were right, Master," Obi-Wan said softly.

"Cohl is becoming predictable." "We can hope, Obi-Wan." One of the sentries circled the pod, then returned to the open hatch, where the other was waiting.

"Now's our chance," Qui-Gon said. "You know-was "I know what to do, Master. But I still don't understand your reasoning. We could surprise Cohl here and now." "It's more important that we discover the location of the Nebula Front's base, Padawan. There'll be time then to put an end to Captain Cohl's exploits." Qui-Gon inserted a small breathing device into his mouth and flipped a switch that opened the circular front hatch. A cacophony of skirling sirens greeted them. The two Jedi climbed out into the red glow of emergency lighting that suffused the hold.

No object was more symbolic of the Jedi Knights than the polished alloy cylinders Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan wore on the hide belts that cinched their tunics. With the belts' abundance of utility pouches, the thirty-centimeter- long cylinders might have been tools of a sort-and, indeed, the Jedi viewed them as such- but, in fact, they were weapons of light, actual and figurative, and had been employed by the Jedi for thousands of generations in their self-appointed mandate to serve the Galactic Republic as the stewards of peace and justice.

The crystal-focused lightsaber, however, was not the true source of a Jedi's power, for that sprang from the omnipresent energy field that permeated all life and bound the galaxy together, an energy field the Jedi knew as the Force.