Republic Commando: Triple Zero

15

Mandalorians are surprisingly unconcerned with biological lineage. Their definition of offspring or parent is more by relationship than birth: adoption is extremely common, and it's not unusual for soldiers to take war orphans as their sons or daughters if they impress them with their aggression and tenacity. They also seem tolerant of marital infidelity during long separations, as long as any child resulting from it is raised by them. Mandalorians define themselves by culture and behavior alone. It is an affinity with key expressions of this culture—loyalty strong self identity, emphasis on physical endurance and discipline-that causes some ethnic groups such as those of Concord Dawn in particular to gravitate toward Mandalorian communities, thereby reinforcing a common set of genes derived from a wide range of populations. The instinct to be a protective parent is especially dominant. They have accidentally bred a family-oriented warrior population, and continue to reinforce it by absorbinglike-minded individuals and groups.

–Mandalorians: Identity and Its Influence on Genome, published by the Galactic Institute of Anthropology

Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 0815 hours, 384 days after Geonosis

This was no place for a fighting man to be when his brothers were out in the field, but Ordo reasoned that the faster he identified and neutralized the informant, the sooner he could leave this office job.

“Clone,” the Nimbanel voice said. The creature was riding him today. It was a bad idea—normally. “Clone! Have you input the overnight batch of data yet?”

I know at least ten ways to kill you without a weapon, lizard. I'd like to try them all.

“Yes, Gurus,” Ordo said, being nice, compliant Corr. “I have.”

“Then you should have told me immediately.”

Ordo heard Skirata's constant admonishment in his head and kepthis temper: Udesii, udesii, ad'ika—easy, easy, son. This clerk wasn't fit to clean Corr's boots. He certainly wasn't fit to clean his.

“My apologies,” Ordo said, acting the calm man that he definitely wasn't right then. “It won't happen again.”

Besany Wennen raised her head from her screen very slowly. She was distressingly pretty. The symmetry of her features made him uncomfortable because he wanted to stare, and his male instinct said pursue, but his brain said suspect.

“Gurus, if you have a concern about data management, may I suggest you raise it with me first?” The warmth in her voice had disappeared completely. The frequency dropped as her lips compressed. Ordo could see her in his peripheral vision: she had a way of switching off that vivid smile and just freezing for a few moments. This was someone used to obedience in those around her. “Trooper Corr is doing what I asked of him.”

Ordo had no idea if that was true or if she was saving him embarrassment. He managed a placatory smile anyway. Watching Corr last night had honed his act a little more.

As he worked, inputting vessel pennant codes and supply routes into the program that fed the wall display, he pondered on the one solid piece of information he had. The advance schedule for movements of men and materiel was stripped out to provide confirmation messages. One internal stream went to GAR logistics battalions and Fleet Ops, and one external stream was relayed to the thousands of civilian contractors who provided supplies and transport. The two sets of data were different.

So this had to be the data that was left on a chip at the drop point within the complex—the one that Vinna Jiss had helpfully described to Vau whether she wanted to or not. The bomb attacks had been spread throughout the contractor and military supply networks; whoever executed the attacks had both sets of data.

And copying data showed no audit trail. Relaying data from the system did. And that was what routine security watched. Old tech beat state-of-the-art with depressing frequency.

All Ordo had to do now was watch the surveillance images of the drop point at the female 'freshers. So far it had picked up nothing. He had no idea how frequently the Separatist contact—and he had to assume it was one—checked the locker, but nobody had shown up. Maybe they hadn't missed Jiss yet.

It was nearly noon when Supervisor Wennen got up and left the operations room. On a whim, Ordo laid his helmet on its side on the desk next to him at an angle where he could discreetly view the feed from the 'freshers playing out on his HUD.

Wennen was not the kind of woman who belonged here. Some uneasiness told him so. Kal'buir had told him that a strong hunch was usually based on subconscious observation of hard facts, and was to be treated with respect.

The grainy blue image showed Wennen entering the 'freshers. She didn't glance around. She paused at the lockers, scanned along them with her head moving visibly, tucked a strand of pale hair behind one ear, and bent to open several unlocked doors until she appeared to tire of it and left again. She reappeared in the ops room a minute later and gave him a regretful smile that appeared utterly sincere.

Something had irked her.

Ah, Ordo thought, disappointed.

Then he wondered why he felt that disappointment, and realized it was due to impulses unconnected to the business in hand. And business, of course, had just taken a turn for the better.

His shift finished when hers did, at 1600.

He would spend the next few hours working out exactly how to remove her without alerting any other Separatist contacts that might be in her cell. He wanted them all.

1100 hours, 384 days after Geonosis, commercial zone, Quadrant N-09: agreed meeting point to open negotiations with interested parties

“Lazy chakaare,” Fi said, glancing at his chrono. “What time do they call this?”

“Well, if they got here before us and we can't see 'em … we're probably dead meat.”

Darman was somewhere on the opposite side of the Bank of the Core Plaza, three floors above the pedestrian area in a storeroom he had infiltrated. Fi couldn't see him, but his voice was clearly audible in his head: the bead comlink was so sensitive that it picked up subvocalization via the eustachian tube.

They'd been here since 2330 last night. They had observed and noted every cleaning droid, automated walkway sweeper, late worker, early-morning commuter, shopper, drunk, CSF foot patrol, delivery repulsor, unlicensed caf vendor, and truant schoolkid that had passed in and out of the plaza from any direction. They had also swept the cliff walls of office buildings and—to Fi's great interest—noted that some employees did not catch up with the filing after hours if they had colleagues of the opposite sex with them.

And every couple of hours, Etain Tur-Mukan had walked briskly across the plaza as if she had business somewhere, sweeping the area with whatever extra sense Jedi had that enabled them to detect concealed people. Etain was said to be good at that. She could place the squad to within a meter. Each time she passed, Fi heard Darman move or swallow, and he wasn't sure if it was because he could see her or because she was reaching out to him in the Force.

Fi suddenly wanted the uncomplicated focus of a totally military life on Kamino.

You're getting distracted. Think of the job in hand. Maybe they'd let him keep the bead comlink after this op. They'd never miss a few back at HQ. Surely.

“I want my HUD back,” Darman said. “I want my enhanced view.”

“But you get to wear face camo instead. Makes you feel wild and dangerous.”

“I'm wild,” Sev's voice said. Sev was behind a roof balustrade under a pile of discarded plastoid sheeting. “And then I get dangerous. Shut up.”

“Copy that,” Fi said cheerfully, and clicked his back teeth twice to exit Sev's open comlink channel. It was far too noisy an environment for their quiet conversation to be heard anyway. “Miserable di'kut.”

“Don't mind him.” Scorch was at walkway level about fifty meters west of the meeting point, lying prone in a disused horizontal access shaft. “He'll be fine once he's killed something.”

Darman had a Verpine rifle with live rounds, as did Sev. Fi and Scorch had the nonlethal tracking projectiles, twelve rounds each. The Verp was truly lovely. Fi had always wondered just how many credits Sergeant Kal had made over the years. His growing collection of expensive, exotic weapons and the modest extravagance of his bantha jacket were the only visible signs that it might have been a lot.

“Dar—”

“Possible contact, first walkway level, my left of the bank entrance …”

Fi adjusted his scope and tracked right. It was a boy he'd seen before: human, very short scrubby light hair, gangly. He was still hanging around the plaza. If he was a Sep, he was a disgracefully amateurish one. They watched for a few minutes, and then a young girl in a bright yellow tunic raced up to the boy and flung her arms around him. They kissed enthusiastically, drawing glances from passersby.

“I think he knows her,” Fi said. He felt his face burn. It bothered him and he looked away.

“Well, that's just you and Niner left on the shelf now that your brothers are spoken for,” Scorch said.

There was a pause. Darman cut in. “You got a point to make, ner vod?”

“I think it's kind of encouraging.” Scorch chuckled. “Atin gets a cute Twi'lek, Dar gets his very own general—”

“—and Scorch gets a thick ear if he doesn't shut it right now”

The comlink was suddenly silent except for the occasional sound of swallowing. Darman wasn't in a joking mood when it came to Etain. He never had been, not even on Qiilura, when there hadn't been anything going on between them.

Why is this hurting so much? Why do I feel I've been cheated?

Kal'buir, why didn't you prepare me for this?

It was too distracting. Fi shut his eyes for a few moments and went into the sequence he had learned to center himself when the battlefield pressed in on him: controlled breathing, concentrating on nothing except the next inhalation, ignoring everything that wasn't of the next moment. It took a while. He shut out the world.

Then he found that he had his eyes open without even realizing and he was simply following movement on the plaza below through the breathtakingly accurate scope of the Verpine rifle.

“Now, do we get the best kit or what?” he said, becoming the confident man he wanted to be again. “Name me another army where you get handcrafted Verps to play with.”

“The Verpine army,” Scorch said.

“Do they have an army?”

“Do they need one?”

Silence descended again. At 1150 Sev cut into the comlink circuit. “Stand by. Kal's moving into position.”

Skirata wandered into the plaza from the direction of the Senate with Jusik one on side and an excited Lord Mirdalan straining on a leash on the other. He was doing a credible job of looking as if the strill were his constant companion. The animal seemed remarkably content with him, given the number of times Skirata had driven it off or thrown his knife at it over the years. Maybe the riot of strange new scents had thrilled the strill enough that it didn't much care that the man who usually shouted at it was holding the leash. Fi watched as they took up a position near the door, sitting down on an ornate durasteel seat shaped like a bow.

Skirata's voice came over the comlink circuit.

“How's my boys?”

“Cramp, Sarge,” Darman said. “And Fi's dribbling over your Verpine.”

“He can clean it, then. Ready?”

“Ready.”

At 1159 a human male in his forties—green casual tunic, brown pants, collar-length brown hair, beard, tall, lean build—walked toward Skirata and Jusik in a purposeful line. Fi tracked him.

“Got him, Fi,” Darman said. If anything went wrong, the man would be dead in a fraction of a second from a silent high-kinetic round in his back.

“Escort,” Sev said. “Looks like three … no, four. Three male, one female, all human … one male twenty meters south of Darman. Spread out but all moving toward Skirata.”

“Got him.”

“Got the female,” Scorch said.

“You sure they're with the Beard?”

“Yeah, check their eyeline, Fi. They're watching him, nothing else. They're pretty cool about it but they're obviously not professionals. They shouldn't even be looking his way.”

Etain's voice cut in. “There's another female approaching slowly on the Senate side of the bench. I'm moving in behind her so you can spot her.”

Sev cut in. “Any more?”

“I can only sense four others plus the man approaching Kal.”

“Aww, look. They've taken up positions to block the main pedestrian routes off the plaza. Thank you! I love a target that identifies itself.”

“I hope this doesn't turn into a shooting match,” Scorch said. “Too many civvies.”

“I can get a clear shot,” Sev said. “And I can take at least three out from here. Relax. You just worry about tagging 'em.”

Tagging. Would they feel it?

Fi dropped in an EM filter with a touch on the optics housing. He focused the scope on the woman now standing almost under Darman's position by the walkway heading toward Quadrant N-10: shoulder-length red hair, blue business suit, tan leather document bag. The filter detected electromagnetic emissions, which made it not only handy for locating someone operating a comlink but also just perfect for seeing if Dust had hit its target. It cast a pinkish brown tinge across the image.

He checked for indications of wind speed. The woman's hair was moving slightly in the breeze: a flimsi cup discarded near the caf vendor rolled a little way along the paving. Fi adjusted his scope and checked the air temperature, which had crept up a fraction in the last twenty minutes. He adjusted the Verp's settings again and settled the weapon on his forearm.

Relax. Power coil set to medium. Don't want her to feel the projectile hit her. Don't want to spray the Dust over the whole plaza, either …

The crosshairs settled.

“So that's a strill.” The man's voice was a little fuzzy but Fi could hear the accent, even if he didn't recognize it. “Charming. Call me Perrive.”

“And you can call me Kal.”

Fi closed his eyes for a second and slowed his breathing. When he opened them, the aim was still dead center of the woman's chest.

“So let's see the goods.”

Fi exhaled slowly and held his breath.

“Here. Take it and have it tested.”

Fi's finger tightened on the end of the trigger. The Verp was so finely constructed that all he felt was a sudden lack of resistance under his finger and the rifle fired—silent and without recoil.

“How much stuff in all?”

“Hundred kilos. More if you need it.”

A smoke-like white puff billowed in Fi's filter. The projectile had burst on contact, showering the woman with microscopic tracking powder, each tiny fragment capable of relaying its location back to the base receiver at Qibbu's—or even to a HUD. She glanced down as if an insect had landed on her and then simply brushed the end of her nose as if she'd inhaled pollen.

“Five hundred grade?”

“All of it,” said Kal.

“Dets?”

“How many?”

“Three or four thousand.”

“Five-hundred-grade—I have it. Dets—just a matter of acquiring them discreetly. A day maybe.”

“Confirm—female target in blue, marked.” Fi tracked the rifle ninety degrees to his left. “Targeting the male farthest from Kal. Black jacket.”

Breathe easy. Relax. He aimed and adjusted the scope again, held his breath at the comfortable point of exhalation, and fired for a second time. Again, the man reacted and looked for something on his chest, then carried on watching Skirata as if nothing had happened.

“Male, black jacket—target marked. So they can feel it strike, then.”

“Don't hog them all,” Scorch said. “I want a go.”

“All yours, ner vod.”

“Targeting the male right of Skirata, gray robe …”

Fi lined up his EM scope on Scorch's target to observe. Scorch's breathing paused, and then Fi saw a puff of white smoke bloom on the gray robe. He didn't react at all.

“Now the other male, red vest, left of Skirata by the caf vendor … no, keep still, you di'kut … that's better.” Scorch was silent again. Fi watched through the EM filter. The projectile burst neatly on the man's shoulder and he brushed his nose without noticing, just like the first woman. Maybe it was a combination of seeing absolutely nothing as 'the pellet's binding agent vaporized, and being hyped up on adrenaline during a mission. They weren't tuned in to much beyond seeing and not being seen.

“Okay, who's taking Beard Guy? Perrive.”

“Me,” Fi said. “If I make it three for three, do I get to keep him? Y'know, stuffed and mounted?”

“He'd make a nice stand for your Hokan armor.”

Perrive—Beard Guy—stood at a slight angle, moving a little as he spoke to Skirata. He held the small pack of thermal plastoid in his hand, about a hundred grams of it, and was squeezing it between his fingers while glancing at the wrapping. It looked for all the world like a spice deal, and Fi wondered for a moment if they were all blind to how obvious that might appear.

Worry about that later. Tag him.

“Turn around, chakaar. I don't want to hit your back.”

Fi had settled into a rhythm now. He watched through the scope as Perrive slipped the plastoid into his pocket and stood with one hand on his belt, turning idly back and forth, presenting a good expanse of back and then a narrow angle of shoulder.

Fi relaxed, aimed and went for the shoulder, anticipating the turn.

Whuff.

The tracker projectile struck home and got no reaction.

“Okay we'll take a look at this and get back to you tomorrow at noon,” Perrive said. “If we like it, we meet somewhere private. If we don't, you never hear from me again.”

“Suits me,” said Skirata.

“What about the second woman?” Fi said. “Etain, where are you?”

“About three meters to her left.”

“Can you edge her clear of the civvies?”

“Okay …”

Fi listened. Skirata could hear all this on his comlink bead, too. It took some skill to carry on talking with someone having a five-way conversation in your ear.

“Excuse me,” Etain said. “I'm hopelessly lost. Can you show me how I get to Quadrant N-Ten?”

Fi watched as the woman simply paused, looked at Etain with surprise, and then began pointing out the connecting walkway. Etain moved. The woman stepped out farther, pointing again.

“Thank you,” Etain said, and walked on.

Whuff. The projectile plumed light on the woman's shoulder. And she brushed her nose.

“All six tagged,” Fi said. He changed channels with an exaggerated click of his molars. “Niner, you receiving?”

“Got 'em all,” said Niner's voice, several quadrants away in Qibbu's. “Nice vivid traces on the holochart.”

“Okay.” Fi let his head drop to ease his neck muscles. “You can wind up now, Sarge.”

“The old di'kut's good at it, isn't he?” Scorch betrayed a grudging fondness. Skirata could hear the conversation and Scorch knew it. “I'd love to know where he learned to do all that.”

Skirata's face didn't even twitch. Nor did Jusik's. Jusik was just looking around as a gangster's errand boy was supposed to, appearing alert but not too bright.

“My intermediary says you have lots of army friends,” Perrive said.

“Contacts,” Skirata said. “Not friends.”

“Don't like our army, then?”

“Just useful. Just clones.”

“Not worried what happens to them?”

“You're not some di'kutla liberal, trying to recruit me, are you, son? No, I don't give a mott's backside about clones. I'm in this for me and my family.”

“Just curious. We'll be in touch, if we like the goods.”

Skirata simply sat with his hands thrust into his pockets, apparently watching the strill, which had stretched out in an ungainly pile of loose skin with its head under the bench, trailing drool. Jusik chewed vacantly, also staring ahead. Fi and the sniper team watched Perrive and the five targets disperse into walkways and down-ramps.

They waited.

“Anyone else spot a Jabiimi accent there?” Jusik asked.

Skirata leaned over and appeared to be about to pat Mird. “I reckon so.” Fi waited for it to sink its teeth in him, but he stopped short of touching it and the animal simply rolled over to watch his hand with malevolently curious eyes.

Fi remembered the strill from Kamino. It seemed smaller now that he was a grown man. Once, it was bigger than he was.

Eventually there was a long sigh of relief. “I sense they're all gone,” Jusik said. “Niner, are they clear of the plaza area?”

Niner grunted. “Confirmed. You can move now.”

“Stand down, lads,” Skirata said at last. “Well done.”

“Nice job, Etain,” said Darman's voice.

“Yeah, okay, well done the Mystic Mob, too.” Skirata tugged on Mird's leash; the pile of fur scrambled onto all six legs and shook itself. “Let's thin out carefully, and don't forget to wipe off the face camo before you move. We'll RV back at Qibbu's by thirteen-fifteen. Then get some rest.”

“Sounds good,” Fi said. It was only when the tension had passed that he realized how stiff his joints felt and how much parts of him hurt from twelve hours and more lying prone on the makeshift padding of his jacket. “Hot bath, hot meal, and sleep,”

Skirata cut in. “You know I didn't mean that, don't you?”

“What?”

“About clones. Qibbu obviously mentioned you to his scum associates.”

“Of course we know, Sarge,” Scorch said. “You said you were in this for your family, didn't you?”

Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 1615 hours, 384 days after Geonosis

Ordo listened to his concealed comlink with a practiced expression of blank disinterest while he keyed in traffic movements. The holochart that covered every centimeter of wall space shifted and pulsed as consignments turned from red to green—now laden, cross-checked, and en route—and requests for replenishment stacked up in a panel of blue horizontal bars.

The holochart gave no numbers of troops, but a little common sense would have told anyone who wanted to spend the time thinking through the obvious that they were thinly stretched. There were, Ordo knew, at least a million troops now in the field spread over hundreds of worlds: small forces on some, multiple battalions on others. It meant long supply chains, and those were inherently vulnerable. So … why didn't the Separatist terror networks target them offworld? No ability. No suitable vessels or skills. Or … maybe the point was to intimidate the seat of galactic government after all.

Motive mattered. Motive gave you the capacity to think like the enemy, want what they wanted, and then snatch it from them.

And killing clone troopers—mainly troopers, if you didn't count the unfortunate civilians who were also in the way—made the point that the Seps could come and go as they pleased.

Ordo took it personally. He drew on the memory of sharp, cold fear and focused hatred that he had learned on Kamino before a total stranger had stepped in front of him and saved his life.

We can trust nobody but our brothers and Kal'buir.

Over the comlink, he could still hear Niner's exclamations of satisfaction. The six men and women tagged by Fi and Sev were dispersing all over Galactic City, leaving routes and stopping points that Niner and Boss were logging on a holo-chart that showed every skylane, quadrant, and building on Coruscant. Judging by their occasional descent into the rich Mandalorian invective that Kal'buir considered an important part of their continuing education, they were learning more than anyone had bargained for.

Ordo would evaluate it all when he returned, but the number of locations that the tagging had registered had now reached twenty; it was growing into something larger than a fourteen-man team might be able to handle.

Ordo wanted to tell them to concentrate on the clusters, the areas of most traffic, but it would have to wait. The strip cam had yielded nothing, except the fact that females of all species employed in the center seemed to spend a lot of time in the 'freshers rearranging their appearance. Whoever had been used to collecting the data probably knew Vinna Jiss was gone now and was no doubt trying another route. He kept a careful eye on Supervisor Wennen because she seemed to be getting increasingly agitated as the day wore on. He could hear it in her voice. She didn't like Guris. She was checking something: when he went to the 'freshers, she was still on the same screen when he returned, scrolling up and down an inventory.

She was checking rifle shipments going back two or three months. If it's you, Wennen, what is your motive?

He didn't have to stop to read the screen over her shoulder. He could simply glance at it, focus, and walk back to his workstation to close his eyes discreetly and recall what he had seen.

Whatever errors the Kaminoans had made in their attempt to improve Jango Fett's genome, the efforts had not been wasted.

Wennen looked up toward the doors. Her fine-boned face, while still aesthetically pleasing, suddenly froze into genuine anger and lost its prettiness.

“Jiss,” she said sourly. “You'd better have a good excuse this time.”

Ordo fought every instinct to jerk around and stare. He simply turned his head casually to focus on a sheet of flimsi to his right, and there she was: Vinna Jiss.

You're dead.

“I've been unwell, Supervisor.”

But you're dead. So who are you?

“Heard of comlinks? I even had your landlord calling me, complaining you'd skipped without paying rent.”

I know you're dead because you fell a few thousand meters from a balcony after a chat with Walon Vau.

“Sorry, Supervisor.”

Wennen was all acid, lips compressed. “See me first thing in the morning. I'm off shift now.”

She shut down her workstation, grabbed her jacket, and made a move toward the doors. Then she paused and turned to Ordo.

“Corr, it's sixteen-thirty,” she said. “Come on. Time to go. Nobody will thank you for sitting there all night. Want me to drop you off at the barracks?”

Jiss, either you're dead or you're an imposter. So who did Vau kill?

“Thank you, Supervisor.” Ordo logged off and replaced his helmet, suddenly glad of the chance to hide behind an anonymous white plastoid visor and stare horrified at the face of a dead woman who seemed to be doing pretty well for a corpse. “I'm … I'm going to meet some comrades from the Forty-first. Could you drop me off at the first taxi platform in the entertainment sector, please?”

“I'm glad you're taking the opportunity to relax, Corr.” She seemed genuinely pleased. “You deserve it.”

Ordo took one last look at the woman who appeared to be Jiss, memorizing every pore and line, and followed Wennen outside to the speeder bays. He slid into the passenger's seat with a hundred questions that had, for once in his life, yielded no fast answers.

Wennen powered up her speeder and sat still for a moment, staring at the console.

“Honestly,” she snorted, all exasperation. “That's the most unreliable employee I have ever known. Sometimes I could just kill that woman.”

Operational house, Qibbu's Hut, 1630 hours, 384 days after Geonosis

“There they go … ,” Niner said.

Beads of red light were now dotted throughout the blue holochart of grids and lines that had expanded to fill a space a meter high and two meters long. The tracking Dust was transmitting the movements of the six Separatists they had tagged a few hours earlier.

Etain walked around the 3-D chart, studying tracks that were strung like necklaces with occasional solitary beads placed at intervals. The virtual representation of a section of Galactic City spanned the table. Some of the threads crossed and merged. Niner and Boss were still taking data from it and listing each location while Vau watched with Jusik.

“They do get around,” Vau said. “Jusik, my boy, has anyone ever told you you're a genius?”

Jusik shrugged. “And my friends are excellent shots. Good team, aren't we?”

Friends was an unusual way for a Jedi to describe clone troops who were technically his to command and use as he thought fit. But Jusik simply didn't see the world that way. Etain found it deeply touching.

“Yes, excellent team,” Vau said. Boss glanced up, evidently pleased. “It's wonderful to watch a job done well.”

That wasn't quite the Walon Vau that Etain had sensed and found to be sheer passionless brutality. He was no less complex and contradictory than Skirata. Atin, reading from his datapad, ignored him completely; Vau sometimes glanced at his former trainee but got no reaction.

Atin loathes him. He wants revenge of some kind. Etain found it hard to reconcile that with the methodical, considerate, and courageous man she knew, the one who had felt he had no right to survive Geonosis when his brothers had died.

While the locations were collated, another frustrating hiatus had forced the squads into rest and recovery. They seemed to need to be busy fighting, especially Delta. Etain could taste their collective impatience. Maybe it was youth; but maybe it was that they didn't enjoy having time to think.

Fi, Sev, Fixer, and Scorch had gone down to the restaurant to eat with Corr, but Darman was asleep in his room. Etain went to check on him and watched him for a while. He lay on his stomach, head turned to one side, cheek resting on folded arms, and twitched occasionally as if dreaming.

They grabbed every small moment together that they could find. And it wasn't enough. Etain kissed his temple and left him to sleep. Skirata, wandering around with his hands deep in his pockets, gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“Looks like we've got three clusters in residential areas,” Boss said. “And now about twenty-five other places they've at least stopped for a while, including shops.”

Skirata stood looking at the mesh of colored light. “We can't cover them all,” he said. “The clusters are the priority.”

“Probably their safe houses or bomb factories.” Boss indicated a static point of red light that hadn't moved in an hour. “I think that's our marked pack of thermal plastoid.”

“Could well be. Got a list now?”

“It gets longer by the hour. How long did you say that Dust can transmit?”

Jusik cocked his head, calculating. “Four, perhaps five weeks.”

“Well, I say we recce the cluster points for a day or so, confirm the activity, and then decide which are the priority targets and leave the rest to CSF.” Niner jabbed his finger into the holochart again to indicate another thread growing as the tagged suspect moved to a new location. “This target is trailing the other. No idea why. Maybe providing tail cover.”

“Okay, you draw up a surveillance roster for the next twenty-four hours and be prepared to pull people off it if I get the call from Perrive, or whatever his real name is.”

“Okay, Sarge.”

Skirata finally allowed himself a little satisfied grin, which put Etain more in mind of a gdan than ever. He gave both Boss and Niner ferocious pats on the back; Boss flinched while Niner turned and smiled, pleased with life. “Nice job. You two go and get something to eat.”

Etain fought an urge to walk across to Skirata and hug him. She had finally worked out what was happening. Omega—and Ordo—were clearly used to genuine affection from him: they touched all the time, from roughhousing and crushing hugs to hair ruffling. Delta didn't. They were uncomfortable with it. Whatever relationship they had with Vau was much more distant, more competitive, more a desperate quest for his approval. Skirata played the good father even now, dispensing treats, unashamedly pleased and proud of everything his boys achieved. Vau looked as if he played the master, and being judged good enough was rare.

It made her wonder more than ever about Atin. She would have seized the moment and taken him aside to ask, because it troubled her, but she was interrupted by the return of Fi and Sev. Fi strode up to Atin and grabbed the datapad from his hand.

“A strange blue woman with no taste in men wants to see you,” he said. “Go on. Laseema's complaining you haven't said hello to her today.”

Fi had a knack for teetering on the edge of offense. He also did a very good job of pretending that Atin's good fortune with Laseema didn't bother him one bit. The aching little void at the core of him, so plainly detectable in the Force, said otherwise.

Jusik caught Etain's eye: he spotted it, too. Then he looked past her toward the doors, and she felt something as well—anxiety and distress, very clearly emanating from a presence that could only be Ordo.

He strode into the room and began unfastening his armor, jaw clenched. Skirata just waited.

“So, did you have a good day at the office, dear?” said Fi.

“She's not dead,” Ordo said. “Vinna Jiss is not dead.”

“Start again, son,” Skirata said.

“A woman my supervisor identified as Vinna Jiss walked back into the logistics center at sixteen-fifteen today.” He stacked the plates and sat down on the edge of a chair, completely calm except for the telltale gesture of one fist clenched on his knee. He looked up at Vau. “And it was her, or at least she looked the image of the woman Jusik picked up. In one piece. Are you sure you killed her?”

Vau raised an eyebrow. “Oddly enough, yes. Humans don't bounce. I would have spotted that, I think.”

“Then who was that at work today?”

“You couldn't be mistaken?”

Ordo didn't even blink. “I remember everything I see in complete detail. I have eidetic memory. What I saw was the identical image of the woman we detained and who you took for interrogation. Of that much I am absolutely certain.”

“Fierfek,” Skirata said. “Options?”

“One, she's a twin or a clone.” Ordo counted off on his fingers. “Two, she's some kind of droid designed to mimic her. Three? A Clawdite. Shapeshifting is a useful skill for a terror group to recruit. But why would they want to mimic a dead colleague?”

“How about that supervisor?”

“I've logged her going into the 'freshers and searching lockers, but now I have no idea if she's working alone or with this Jiss woman. She was genuinely angry when she saw her, though.”

“Because the other Jiss fouled up, maybe.”

“We need to do some surveillance on this resurrected Jiss. She's supposed to be on the evening shift, so I'm going back to the center just before midnight and I'll follow her when she leaves.”

Jusik's lips parted but Etain was faster off the mark. “I'll come with you,” she said. “I'll be able to tell you whether she's a droid, at least.”

“I can do that with sensors,” said Ordo.

“I'll come with you anyway.”

Ordo turned to Skirata. “I don't like mysteries.” He was clearly embarrassed. “I'm sorry, Kai' bait: I'm not resolving this as fast as I should.”

“Son, this is never a fast game. We're making good progress. Take it easy.”

But Ordo wasn't the type to take it easy. He joined the contemplation of the holochart and picked up Niner's datapad.

“I'll take a clip of those Dust rounds, please, Bard'ika,” he said. “Just in case.”

Skirata drew his stubby Verpine handgun from his holster. “Better use this, then. More compact than the rifle.”

“Thank you.”

Etain stood with Vau, watching the erratic progress of the markers around the chart. A hard decision lay within it: at what stage would Skirata feel it was safe to bring CSF in on the surveillance? When would he share information with them? Etain understood his anxiety, but the simple mathematics of the situation was that CSF would be needed sooner or later.

Ordo began logging more locations into the datapad. His jaw muscles were working visibly. It must have been hard for a man used to being smarter than anyone else except his five brothers to handle the ordinary mortals' world of being dumbfounded a lot of the time.

“Oh,” Vau said suddenly.

“What?”

“Tell me what this building is.”

Jusik interrogated the database in the holochart emitter. “CSF Divisional Headquarters.”

“Well, well,” said Vau. “How illuminating. Why is one of our tagged bad guys going in there?”