“Everything ready?” Besany asked.
“Yes, Agent Wennen,” said Jay, the tech droid. “We’ve maintained strict security. None of the staff knows it’s an audit investigation. As far as everyone is concerned, the shutdown is due to the virus infecting the network.”
“Let’s go,” she said, and nodded to Mereel and Jaing. Monitoring them from a few paces away was a Central Republic Audit Office employee with a name tag that read ELLIK, but Besany was sure the woman was an Intel agent. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t find a thing. “Lockdown.”
This was how it was done, by the book. No warning was given. Staff throughout the building suddenly found that their input devices wouldn’t work, their computer screens were frozen, and they couldn’t make comm calls. And then a small army of droids began searching their workstations, because it wasn’t a job that anyone wanted a flesh-and-blood colleague to do. Droids were impersonal, impartial, and nobody had to look at them resentfully afterward. It made for more peaceful workplace relations.
Security droids also stood guard at the exits; actually locking staff in breached fire regulations. Besany found that almost funny under the circumstances.
“What would you like us to do, Agent Wennen?” Mereel asked, deadpan. “Lieutenant Jaing is ready to start.”
The two Nulls stood to attention by the control console. All data storage and processing for the Treasury was done from this huge room; the staff—mainly human, but also Nimbanese and Sullustans—watched the two ARC troopers warily. Besany wondered whether to ask them to remove their helmets, so that the staff could see that there were real human beings under the white plastoid, seeing as the rest of the security rummage was being done by droids. She wanted them to know the difference. But now she also knew how much clone troopers relied on the helmet systems for comms. Jaing and Mereel would want to conduct unheard conversations.
We’re here to get this done without digging ourselves in any deeper. The public relations will have to wait.
“You can run your forensic program now, Lieutenant.”
She stood back to give Jaing control of the terminal. The CRAO officer glided up behind his seat like a ghost, watching in silence while he inserted the datachip, keyed in commands, and then sat back.
“What program are you running, exactly, clone?”
Besany braced for impact. It was a very emotive issue, using the term clone when the woman knew both his rank and name. It said he was nothing.
“Routing analysis, to detect via which terminal the virus entered the network, and then purge it from the system, overweight female human,” Jaing said.
The shock on her face gave way to outrage. “I beg your pardon?”
Jaing’s tone remained even. “I thought we were using generic phenotype descriptions as a term of address, as you appear to have dispensed with name and title.”
It really wasn’t the best time to make a stand on courtesy, but that was a measure of how angry it made the Nulls. At any other time, it would have been funny. Officer Ellik looked as if she was trying to translate what Jaing had said into some language she understood. Besany silently willed Jaing to quit while he was ahead.
“How will this program detect that when our security scan couldn’t… Lieutenant?”
“Because I wrote this program, Officer Ellik, and I’m a great deal more intelligent than those who produce monitoring systems for Republic Procurement.”
It was impossible to take offense at Jaing. He was simply stating facts. Ellik didn’t answer, but watched him carefully while Besany made an effort to look as if she was curious about what he might find.
“There,” he said at last. “That’s your point of entry. A comlink data portal.”
“I thought we had adequate filtering for comlink-borne attacks,” Besany said. “Jay, schedule me an interview with the head of system security, please. Let’s get that plugged.” Jaing didn’t need that access now, anyway. “Lieutenant, can you suggest a solution for that?”
“Certainly, ma’am.”
“Can you identify the incoming comlink?” Ellik asked.
Jaing pushed his seat back to let her look at the screen. “No, I’m afraid not. This code here shows—”
“Oh yes. The range of numbers is within the public node allocation.”
“You’re very well informed,” Jaing said, keying in more commands. “Yes, it’s the public comlink node in the Fobosi district. The university.”
Ellik shut her eyes for a moment. “If this is some student prank, they have some very sophisticated programming skills.”
“Kids today,” he said, shaking his head.
Ellik had switched from addressing Jaing like a droid to apparently thinking he had more to contribute than Besany. “You don’t think it’s a student slicing into our system for thrills, do you?”
“If I were a gambling man, Officer Ellik, I would place my credits on industrial espionage.”
“Why not real espionage?”
“Because company secrets and the profits associated with them are bigger than planetary interests. Spying is small stuff by comparison.”
“I don’t know which should worry us more,” she said.
“I could, of course, run similar checks for all the Republic contractors whose details are held on the Treasury system, starting with Defense. This spy program—and that’s all it was, I think, because there are no corrupt data—has probably taken a look at commercially sensitive information.”
“You’re very definite about that.”
“If it was military espionage, Officer Ellik, they’d be looking for totally different data—specifications, operating parameters, jamming frequencies. None of that data is held here. Anyone rummaging through the accounts wants financial information.”
“Good thinking,” she said. “Very well, I’ll authorize your access to defense contractors to carry out whatever checks you need. I doubt they’ll refuse our help under the circumstances.”
Besany was left breathless by Jaing’s sheer nerve. Had he planned this? Was he just busking it, as Skirata called it—making it up as he went along? He’d just talked his way into rifling through KDY’s systems with the Republic’s blessing. It was so casual, so effortless, that Besany wondered if Ordo was also really all he seemed.
“I could do what we call hardening a target,” said Jaing. “Try to breach their system security to see if it’s robust enough. I’m sure they have paid professionals to do that, but so does the Treasury, and they didn’t spot this spy program on entry.”
Ellik nodded. “Start with KDY. I’ll square it with the chief of staff and the Chancellor’s office. Wait for my confirmation. Lieutenant, have your program sent over to our information technology division.” She turned to Besany. “And I still want to see the results of staff monitoring, just in case. These people may have contacts on the inside.”
“That’s being done now, Officer Ellik.” Besany turned to the control room staff. “As soon as you get the all-clear from the droid security teams, release the system lockdown.”
Ellik left without shaking hands, which was no surprise. Besany, almost faint with relief, followed Jaing and Mereel outside into the service turbolift. Mereel ran his gauntlet around the interior as if he was feeling for a draft of air, then checked the display on his forearm plate.
“No bugs,” he said, and took off his helmet. “Spook.”
Jaing took off his helmet, too. “Definitely, spook. Nobody else would memorize public comlink node outgoing codes. Nobody sane, anyway.”
“You pushed your luck there, Jaing,” Besany said. She could feel her face burning now as the adrenaline dissipated. “Did I read that right? You’re going to slice KDY’s system on Republic time?”
“Please, miss, can I do some spying? I won’t make a mess…,” Mereel mocked Jaing. “You little crawler.”
“You’re just jealous of my sheer animal magnetism, vod’ika.”
“I wondered what that smell was.”
<
br /> Jaing affected a breathless, sultry tone. “Women can’t resist me. Not even Ellik.”
“Get over yourself.” Mereel laughed. “But that did take some gett’se, I admit.”
Besany watched the indicator charting their progress to the four hundreth floor of the complex. “I don’t want to do that ever again, Jaing.”
“With any luck, you won’t.”
They replaced their helmets. Besany tidied her hair to make sure that when she stepped out of the turbolift, she didn’t look red-faced and guilty at having lied to cover up an even bigger mountain of lies.
The doors parted and they walked to her office past open areas where droids were still searching desks and cupboards, watched in grim silence by the clerks. Besany checked that her terminal was working again, then turned to Jaing.
“Are you really handing over your program to her?”
“I’m handing over a program to her. There’s nobody working for her who’ll know the difference. That’s my intellectual property, and if she wants it for Republic use, she can pay me for it.”
“And, of course, the Republic will never spot another Jaing virus with it,” Mereel said. “Everything will look nice and clean.”
Besany had to do a double take. “You mean you pulled another scam under her nose?”
Jaing shrugged. “Well, she thinks she’s got a program that’ll find all spy applications now, but she hasn’t, so she might well have more viruses she’ll never know about. So… yeah, I think I did.”
“Remind me never to play sabacc with you.”
It was the all-clear; this crisis, at least, had passed, and Besany was back to her normal daily level of fear of discovery. Somehow it seemed a lot lower.
“Agent Wennen?”
She looked past Jaing and Mereel. It was Jay, the tech droid. “All sorted, Jay? Back to normal?”
“Droid security team Eight-Seven Beta report finding evidence of improper access and use by an employee, ma’am.”
Besany’s shoulder’s sagged a little. They were back to the routine of internal disciplinary trivia. Remote gambling, no doubt; some staff were hooked. You’d think Treasury staff would know better…
“Who is it this time, Jay? I hope the winnings made it worthwhile.”
“Ma’am, it’s Agent Jilka Zan Zentis. We’ve detained her for accessing suspicious files unconnected to her duties, and transferring confidential data files to flimsi copy for removal from the system.”
The office perspective shifted violently like zooming the focus on a holocam. Besany’s relief had been cruelly shortlived. The Nulls said nothing, acting as if they didn’t know the name.
“These—these are just procedural slips on her part, right?” Some files never left the building, either on datachips or hard copy. “She’s just been careless. But what’s this got to do with me? She’s Tax Enforcement. She’s not in my department.”
“But you’re in charge of the defense data security breach, Agent Wennen.” Jay was patient, if a droid could be. Besany always assumed they could. “And she appears to have been accessing defense budget data.”
“Oh, that can’t be right.” I know it can’t be true, don’t I? “I’m sure this is just some mistake, and it wouldn’t be the first time. Let her go back to her desk. I’ll talk to her.”
“Apologies, ma’am, but you can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Standing procedure says we’re obliged to refer the matter to law enforcement.”
Ah, good old CSF. Captain Obrim would sort out this little mess without a fuss. He’d made Besany’s armed siege at the medcenter vanish without a trace, after all. “I’ll call CSF, then. Just to square the books.”
“No, ma’am, it’s Republic Domestic Security for any breach like this involving civil servants. The head of staff security has alerted them.”
Besany found her stomach knotting again. RDS was new, not part of CSF or any civilian law enforcement structure at all, and reported direct to the Chancellor’s office. The cozy word domestic belied the true nature of the beast.
“Well… they’ll find they have the wrong person, then,” she said.
Besany knew they had the wrong woman, because she was the perpetrator.
But there was nothing she could say to clear her friend that would not end in disaster for Skirata, Ordo, and everyone she now held dear.
Now she fully understood the term collateral damage.
Arca Barracks, Coruscant,
later that day
There was something going wrong; Darman knew it.
“Shouldn’t we be out hunting bad guys by now?” Niner leaned against the transparisteel wall that ran the length of the recreation area overlooking the parade ground. He rested his forehead against the clear sheet, hands in the pockets of his red fatigues. “No briefing? What’s happening, d’you think?”
Darman, boots up on the low table opposite his chair, was psyching himself up to finally face Skirata, and he couldn’t put it off any longer. But when he returned the comm call, Skirata didn’t respond. Darman shoved the comlink back in his pants and rehearsed a long monologue to Etain in his head for the umpteenth time.
I can’t sulk about this forever. I have to see Kad. He’s mine.
“Dar?”
“Don’t ask, At’ika.”
“I thought we were meant to be deployed with Delta. Where are they?”
“Look, we can’t do anything until they get some leads for us to follow. You want to kick down every door on Coruscant?”
“Okay, Dar. Just asking.”
“Why would I know? I’m just the coolie labor. I don’t get told anything.”
Corr didn’t join in. He was examining one of his prosthetic hands, the synthflesh covering peeled back while he tinkered with the miniature servos. He’d lost both arms just above the elbow, and seemed to need to confront the loss head-on. Sometimes he dispensed with the synthflesh and went with the bare-metal look, even sharpening his vibroblade on the durasteel fingers the way some females filed their nails for diversion when bored. Darman took it as bravado; losing one hand seldom bothered anyone in a society that had good medical care, but losing both somehow stripped you of a touchstone of humanity. Besany had been very distressed by it. Corr was the first trooper she’d got to know personally.
“Dar,” Corr said at last, “do you want me to come with you?”
“Where?” Darman knew exactly where he meant. Clone brothers knew each other so well that they could think like one another, which was usually a comfort, but Dar felt more like he was under siege. “Why?”
“Because you shouldn’t face this on your own. Let’s go see your kid.”
“I don’t know where he is. I walked out before Etain explained any of that.”
“Well, ask her.”
Darman wasn’t sure what he’d do when he saw his son. He’d been trying hard to recall his face from when Skirata had laid the baby in his arms—oh, now he understood, now he knew why Kal’buir looked so tearful—but the kid wasn’t going to look like that now. They grew fast, babies. Clones were surrounded by their brothers at every stage of development in Tipoca City, because the Kaminoans didn’t bother to hide the transparisteel gestation tanks. Darman felt he knew enough about baby boys to handle seeing his own.
“Okay,” he said. He commed Skirata again.
Niner didn’t need to be told what Darman was doing. He walked over to his brother and stood watching.
“Son.” Skirata’s voice sounded a bit breathless, as if he’d been pulled away from some crisis. Yes, he was really was Darman’s dad now: it was official, legal, at least on Mandalore. “Son, I was worried about you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah… Kal’buir, where’s my son?”
“He’s with Laseema at the moment. You want to see him, don’t you? He’s a lovely kid.”
“Yes.”
“Etain’s been trying to talk to you.”
“I know.”
“Don’t sh
ut her out, son. This is my fault. I’ll put it right.” Darman heard Ordo say something to Skirata in the background, but he didn’t quite catch it. “I can’t bring him to the barracks while Zey’s there. Jedi take Force-sensitive babies. But not on my watch. Look, we’ve got a few problems at the moment, but I’ll be at the barracks in twenty minutes or so, and we’ll work something out.”
Darman had a long list of questions to ask Skirata, and had been able to ask none of them. He put the comlink away and couldn’t marshal his thoughts. He knew what he wanted to do now; he was calmer, still shocked at the enormity of the news, but if there had been no constraints, no duties, he would have gone to Etain, picked up Kad, and walked out of the GAR to… well, wherever. Mandalore, probably. He didn’t know where Kyrimorut was, and Fi said the location was secret because a haven for deserters and renegades had to show some discretion.
Darman missed Fi. His dream, which was a fancy word for the ideal he’d come to measure his current existence against, was having all his brothers around, and Etain, and Jusik, and all the other people he could trust, and now he added Kad to that—seeing Kad grow up with all these friends and family around him. It had to be all of them. He didn’t want to be on the run, cut off from most of them forever.
“Better armor up,” he said. “Can’t loaf around in my reds all day.”
Arca Barracks was eerily empty much of the time, with most of the commando squads deployed and only a handful there between missions to debrief, recuperate a little, and pick up any necessary retraining and new kit. Omega had the whole floor to themselves. Darman took a shower and washed his fatigues, then armored up and sat in the locker room, helmet on his lap, waiting. The other three ventured in. They seemed to be expecting him to explode if they said the wrong thing. It was a long twenty minutes.
“Here he comes,” said Atin.
Two sets of boots clattered along the corridor, not GAR issue: Mandalorian cetare, definitely, from the sound. Skirata’s gait had changed since his ankle was fixed. Now his walk sounded like any other soldier’s except for the occasional scuff because he was still getting used to not limping. He wore full beskar’gam in the barracks, as if he was weaning himself off the aruetyc ways of Coruscant and its civilian fashions.
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