Believing in them was easy. He had doubts about himself. He glanced over his shoulder. “Is that thing dead yet?”
“Kal’buir, I’m sorry I got this wrong,” Ordo said. Somewhere, no matter how much reassurance Skirata gave him, he still seemed to fear that not being good enough meant a death sentence. Skirata hated Kaminoans with renewed passion. “I should have known what the creature was. I knew they existed.”
“Son, none of us knew any of them were on Coruscant.”
But they were. And that changed everything.
Etain and Jusik were kneeling on either side of the Gurlanin, hands flat on its flanks in some kind of Jedi healing process. Vau watched with interest. He was the anatomy expert, although he was more skilled at taking bodies apart than repairing them. Darman and Niner seemed unwilling to go back to sleep and joined the audience.
They’d become close to a Gurlanin on Qiilura. It must have been very hard to think of them now as possible agents for the Separatists.
It was a black-furred carnivore about a meter high at the shoulder, with long legs, four double-tipped fangs, and hard, unforgiving orange eyes. It now looked exactly what it was: a shapeshifting predator.
“It’s recovering,” Jusik said.
“Good,” Vau said. “Because we want a chat with it.”
Etain looked up with that pinched expression she tended to adopt when she was angry in her rather righteous kind of way. “I lived alongside them. We promised we’d give them back their planet and so far all we’ve done is move in a garrison and train the human colonists to look after themselves.”
Vau stared slightly past her, straight-faced. “I believe that was you personally, General. You and Zey. And you were only following orders. That’s it, isn’t it? Following orders.”
“Knock it off,” Skirata said. He didn’t want Darman pitching in to defend Etain. Everyone’s nerves were raw: tired, stressed people were dangerous, and they needed to be dangerous to the enemy, not each other. “Ordo, what are we going to do with Supervisor Wennen?”
Besany Wennen was propped in a chair, arms folded gingerly across what must have been a very painful bruise to her whole chest. She was lucky that Etain’s close-range PEP round hadn’t killed her, but now the woman was just an extra complication they didn’t need. Ordo was looking her over as if she was a new species.
And she was. There was a comfortable zone of attractiveness in females, and then there was a point beyond which it became too much. The very beautiful were intimidating and unwelcome. Wennen had passed that threshold, and Skirata was ambushed by his own unexpected hostility toward her.
“You’ve probably guessed what we’re doing, ma’am,” Ordo said.
“Anti-terrorist operations?”
“Correct.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.” But there was no screaming outrage or threats that her boss would rip the guts out of their boss, the usual response of bureaucrats. She just indicated the unconscious Gurlanin with a shaky hand. “Where does the Gurlanin fit into all this?”
“Other than mimicking Jiss, we have no idea.”
Wennen seemed to be taking refuge in investigation, continuing to do her job even though she knew she was in a serious situation. Skirata respected that. “So if you two are Jedi, why didn’t you spot the creature?”
“Gurlanins can hide in the Force and shut us out,” Etain said. “When I first encountered them I even thought they were Jedi. They’re telepathic, we can’t detect them, we don’t know how many there are, and they appear to be able to mimic any species up to tall humanoid size.”
“Perfect spies,” Jusik said. “And perfect predators.”
“And we didn’t honor our pledge to help them, so I suspect they’ve run out of patience.”
“Look, no disrespect to our Treasury colleague, boys and girls, but can we refrain from discussing classified intelligence in front of Agent Wennen?” Skirata said. “I need to talk to CSF. Corr, you call up the recce teams and see how far they’ve got on the main locations.”
Skirata wandered out onto the landing platform and breathed in cool night air. The strill was curled up under the bench where, true to his word, Vau had slept each night. He probably thought it proved the point that he was a hard case, but there was no doubt that he worshiped that stinking animal and it loved him.
Atin’s going to take a knife to him when this is over. I know it. Well, worry about that when it happens…
He raised his wrist comlink to his lips. “Jaller?”
There was a pause and the sound of a woman grumbling and sheets rustling. Of course: Obrim had a wife and kids. Skirata often forgot that other people had lives beyond their jobs. “You know what time it is, Kal?”
“To the second. Look, which of your people was on surveillance in the Bank of the Core Plaza?”
There was a long, sleepy, irritable pause. “What, today? None of my people, I guarantee it.”
“Organized Crime Unit?”
“I could ask, but they play these things close to their chests… getting to be an epidemic, this secrecy, isn’t it?”
“Tell you what,” Skirata said, dropping his voice. “Pay your OCU buddies a visit and tell them that anyone we see in our scopes who isn’t us gets slotted as a matter of course, okay? You think they’ll understand that?”
“I can but try.”
“Try hard, then. I don’t want them crashing in like the di’kutla Treasury did tonight.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. An audit officer was sent in to monitor GAR staff siphoning off supplies. But that isn’t my biggest problem right now.” Don’t mention the shapeshifter yet. “Okay, here’s my offer. I now have forty-three individual locations that we believe the Separatists are using or visiting in Galactic City. We have to concentrate on the high-value targets, and you really don’t want to know what we’ll be doing there, so what if we give you a list of the others to pick off as you see fit?”
“When?”
“When we’ve recce’d the high-value ones and have an op order planned out—you know, precise timings. That way we don’t fall over each other.”
Obrim had gone rather quiet. “I can authorize that. But I’ve got no control over the OCU.”
“Then find someone who does. I mean it, Jaller. We’re not playing by rules of evidence.”
“You’ve really gone bandit, haven’t you?”
“Do you really want to hear the answer to that?”
“Fierfek… my eyesight problem has now affected my hearing, too.”
“I thought it might. I’m waiting on a meeting right now and after that, I’ll have a list for you, a reliable one. Just remember that if there’s any talk of explosives sales being of interest to CSF, tell them to steer clear until further notice.”
“I’ll just say military intelligence and leave it at that.”
“Good.”
“You go careful, friend. And those rather hasty boys of yours. Especially Fi.”
Skirata closed the link and went back into the main room. The Gurlanin was breathing more steadily, although its eyes were still closed and the two Jedi were still leaning over it. It was just as well they could stop the bleeding. There wasn’t a medic on Coruscant who knew a thing about the physiology of a shapeshifter like this one.
And Wennen was watching the whole scene suspiciously. Okay, so she had a Treasury identichip. Skirata didn’t trust anybody, because this leak of information was still very much an inside job. Until he knew otherwise, everyone except his assortment of clone soldiers—and the two Jedi, he conceded—was a potential risk.
“Ma’am,” he said. “I hear you don’t approve of the war.” Civilians did odd things in the name of peace. “How much don’t you approve of it? And why?”
Wennen chewed over the question visibly, and both Jusik and Etain flinched at something Skirata couldn’t see. Wennen’s expression changed to anguish. She stood up with some difficulty, and Skirata noted that Ordo’s hand went uncons
ciously to his blaster.
“This,” she said quietly, “is why I don’t like the war.” She went up to Corr, who was still conscientiously collating data and writing it on the flimsi with an expression of intense frowning concentration. “Corr, show me your hands. Please?”
The trooper put his stylus aside and held them out, metallic palms up. Corr placed her hands underneath so that his rested on hers for a moment and looked him straight in the eye. Single prosthetic hands—efficient, unnoticeable—were common; but to lose both hands seemed to pass beyond a threshold of what was flesh and blood.
“It’s not right,” she said. “It’s not right that Corr and men like him should end up like this. I’m wondering what kind of government I’m working for. One with a slave army, that’s what. You know how that makes me feel? Disgusted. Betrayed. Angry.”
Skirata knew that feeling only too well. He just hadn’t expected to hear it from someone who did an office job and could switch off HNE with its heroic and sanitized images of the war anytime she liked. Jusik caught his eye and nodded discreetly: She really means it, she’s upset.
Skirata acknowledged Jusik with a slow blink. “You said it, ma’am.” Got her. We have an ally. She’ll come in useful one day. “Believe me when I say that what we’re doing here is aimed at stopping things like that happening to more lads like Corr.”
Wennen seemed satisfied, if someone that upset could reach that state of mind. She made her way back to the chair and handed Skirata her datapad. “Go on.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what data might be of use to you, and you’re not going to discuss detail with me. So take the datapad and copy what you like.”
“You’re very trusting. You’re sure we’re who we say we are?”
Wennen laughed and stopped abruptly. That had to hurt her ribs. “Look, I know what I’m seeing. Now, if I’m out of contact for more than forty-eight hours, the Treasury will notice. So think about what you’re going to do with me.”
Skirata hefted the little ’pad in his hands. Treasury data, codes, encryption algorithms. Oh, my Null boys will love slicing this. “And who else is going to notice you’re gone?”
“Nobody. Absolutely nobody.”
Skirata pondered on that revelation for a while as he watched the unconscious Gurlanin. Jusik and Etain knelt back on their heels and looked as if they’d run a very tiring race.
“It’ll be regaining consciousness soon,” Etain said. “And I still have no idea how you restrain a shapeshifter.”
Ordo picked up one of the Verpine rifles, checked the charge level, and stood over the inert black body.
“This does the job,” he said.
Recce team observation point,
residential area, business zone 6,
0110 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
“I wish I hadn’t eaten that hot sauce,” Sev said.
“Told you so.” Fi held out his hand for the infrared scope. “My turn.”
They had found a spot to hide between two top-floor apartments facing the building they were watching, a six-floor tower of a house with closed blinds at every window. A climate-conditioning access space nearly at the top of their vantage point gave them an uninterrupted view below of a very quiet, very private group of homes away from the skylanes in a dead end.
The upper floors arched into a fashionable overhang only seven meters from the facing building. No passing traffic could enter from the front to bother them here, not even a taxi, and the rear access was nonexistent, which left only the roof for access by a small green speeder. It was private and a good place to defend—or get trapped. Fi rather liked the idea of the latter.
The access space felt like being in a drawer. They could just about crawl through it on all fours. Fi knew he wouldn’t have enjoyed serving in a tank company at all.
“Roll on your back for a while,” Fi said helpfully.
Sev hesitated then surrendered to the suggestion with a groan. “How many?”
Fi tracked from right to left with the scope. “Well, I think we’ve got ten bodies in there, judging by the GPR image, and they’ve been in there for an hour now, and they’re not moving around much. I call that an operational base. Agreed?”
“Okay. Let’s set up the remote holocam and get out of here.”
“Given the layout of that place, it’s going to be a bit busy slotting them all when we go in.”
“I like busy,” Sev said.
“Have Scorch and Fixer reported in yet?”
Sev held his datapad level with his eyes. “Now, that sounds like fun.”
“What does?”
“Scorch says they’ve confirmed the third cluster is a small commercial docking area. CoruFresh fruit and vegetable distributors. Loads of spacegoing vessels of all sizes.”
“Yes, that’s my idea of fun, too.”
“If we could get them all to meet up for a nice ride…”
“Dream on. But we could certainly stop them from leaving in a hurry.”
Fi backed out of the space, pushing himself on his elbows with his DC-17 crooked in both arms, collecting more dust and dead insects on his bodysuit. He turned sideways on to a narrow shaft that opened into the building’s plant maintenance room and dropped his left leg into the gap, searching for a foothold with his boot before finding the ledge and scrambling down to the floor. Sev simply rolled off and landed with a thud beside him.
“Okay, where next?”
Fi cocked his head. “Want to wander over and take a closer look at the roof? Evaluate it for rapid entry?”
“You know how to engage my enthusiasm.”
Fi projected the fire safety holoplans of the building, which had proved to be Ordo’s best illicit data slice of the mission. There was no point asking the fire department to provide them; it just invited awkward questions about why lads in white armor wanted detailed floor plans of most of the planet’s buildings. “I hope they update these. Okay, go left along the passage; the roof access is the set of doors at the end.”
“I love the fire department.”
“They’re so helpful. Nice uniforms, too.”
They crawled across the flat roof along the side of the climate-conditioning machinery room, over lengths of durasteel ladder laid flat on the waterproofing. Some buildings still had them to provide access to maintenance spaces. There were also the remains of a barbecue. They flattened themselves behind the parapet to peer through the breaks in the punched durasteel at the roof opposite.
“Ooh, a Flash speeder,” Fi whispered.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I meant that we could bolt on a few surprises, not wander off with it.”
“Look, what does the word recce mean, ner vod?”
“It almost sounds like wreck…”
“You scare me,” Sev said. “And that’s saying something.”
“It’s an opportunity we might not get again.”
“So you fly, do you? Going to do a Jango?”
“You’ve got no style.” Fi genuinely wanted to place a thermal detonator on the speeder. It could be set off remotely, giving them a relatively easy extra option for striking at the Seps that they might need soon. But he was also itching to smack Sev down a little. The man thought he was the galaxy’s gift to adventure. So if he wanted adventure, Fi would show it to him, Omega-style.
It also just happened to be the safest way to cross the six-meter gap to the other roof—safer than asking the Seps across the way if they minded two commandos taking a look at their roof, anyway.
Fi edged backward and began placing the sections of ladder end-to-end. They slotted together neatly. Then he crawled back to the parapet and gave the chasm an appraising glance.
He peered across, then down six floors. “That’ll reach.”
“I reckon.” Sev leaned over next to him. “So you’re going to crawl across.”
Fi took the end of the ladder and began to move it carefully to avoid loud scraping soun
ds. Sev took the other end and they balanced it lengthways on the parapet.
“No, I’m going to run.”
“Fi, they say someone spiked my vat. But I reckon someone really spiked yours.”
“Lost your nerve?”
“Di’kut.”
“If I plummet heroically to my doom, then you can crawl across. Deal?”
“I hate it when you try to provoke me into showing you how it’s done.”
“Like this?”
Fi had seconds. They needed to be across the gap and gone before anyone spotted them. He leaned down hard on one end of the ladder, lifting it enough to swing it out horizontally and drop the other end on the facing parapet.
Thirty meters below, death waited. And if it wasn’t death, it was paralysis.
He stepped up on the parapet, tested the first rung with his boot, and then focused straight ahead on the other side.
Then he sprinted.
He still had no idea how his body calculated the gaps but he hit every rung and landed on the far side, dropping flat. When he knelt upright, Sev was staring at him.
Fi beckoned. Come on.
Sev ran for it. Fi broke his landing as he jumped off the parapet. He noted Sev’s clenched jaw with satisfaction.
“Easy,” Fi mouthed.
Sev gave him a hand signal, one of his especially eloquent gestures of disapproval.
The roof had a few steps down to doors that the holoplans showed as access to the top floor of the living area and the turbolift shaft. They didn’t look that substantial in the flesh, but the plans appeared to be accurate: they didn’t always get updated after renovations. A quick application of thermal tape on the doors and it would be easy to lob a few grenades down the hole to soften up the residents before going in. Fi gave Sev a thumbs-up and took a magnetic det out of his belt. It slid into place in the speeder’s air intake with a faint thack.
Back, Fi gestured.
He teetered on the parapet and then ran across the durasteel rungs again, feeling them flex and spring back under his boots. When he looked back, Sev was lining up for the sprint, too. Fi beckoned encouragingly. Sev went for it.
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