“Just tell me what you’re going to do.”
“Make a noise on his balcony so he steps outside.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll have to go in and get him the hard way.”
“But if you—”
“Let’s get him outside if we can.” Vau paused to let an airspeeder pass. The narrow skylane was almost deserted. “Most armies I ended up serving had no notion of advance planning. I got to be very good at unorthodox solutions.”
Etain couldn’t help but feel the patterns in the Force right then. Being pregnant seemed to have enhanced her sensitivity to the living Force by an order of magnitude. Vau felt like a pool of utter cold calm, almost a Jedi Master’s footprint in the Force. The strill felt… alien. It had an unfathomable glittering intelligence and a wild, joyful heart swirling within it. Had it not been for Vau’s rifle and the strill’s savage teeth, the pair might have felt like a peaceful man and his happy child.
She felt something else, as she did constantly now: the vivid, complex pattern of her unborn child.
It’s a boy.
I’m standing on a ledge with thousands of meters of nothing below me. And I am not afraid.
She stopped herself from reaching out to Darman in the Force. It might distract him at a critical moment. She simply felt that he was safe and confident, and that was enough.
“Could you choke him using the Force?” Vau said quietly.
“What?”
“Just asking. Very handy.”
“I was never trained to do that.”
“Pity. All those fine combat skills wasted.”
Vau exhaled audibly and paused. There was the slightest of movements in her peripheral vision as he squeezed the trigger, and a small snakkk echoed as a puff of vaporized stone billowed briefly off the corner of the apartment wall.
“Ahh…,” Vau said. The rifle’s scope was still pressed to the eye slit in his black helmet. He looked like the very image of death. Much as Etain had grown to find that armor reassuring, it made it no less intimidating. “Now, this is not a man used to avoiding professional assassins. Watch carefully and tell me what you feel.”
Perrive paused at the transparisteel doors leading onto the balcony and shoved the datapad inside his tunic. Then he took out his blaster. He opened the doors by a meter, no more, and stood looking around, blaster raised, one foot still inside the apartment, one on the balcony itself.
Etain heard Vau exhale and then Perrive’s head jerked backward with a brief plume of dark blood as if he had been punched by an invisible fist. He fell, arms thrown wide.
Dead. Gone. Whatever had been Perrive was now gone from the Force: no pain, no surprise, and suddenly not there.
Mird the strill was staring up at its master, unblinking, tail thrashing the ledge in enthusiasm. It began making little whimpering noises deep in its throat.
“I must treat myself to one of these,” Vau said, still all complete calm and satisfaction, gazing at the Verpine rifle. “Outstanding craftspeople, those little insectoids.”
“He’s dead.”
“I should think so. The hydrostatic shock generated by a Verpine projectile is substantial. A clean head shot is instantaneous kyr’am.”
“But the datapad is still in his tunic.”
“Good!” He turned to the strill and put his finger to his lips. “Udesii, Mird… silence! K’uur!”
The strill stared up into his face, gold eyes fixed on his, head drawn back a little into its cowl-like folds of loose skin. Its whimpering stopped abruptly. Vau crouched down and held out his arm as if pointing, and closed his fingers into a fist. “Oya…,” he whispered. “Find the aruetii! Find the traitor!”
Mird spun around and stabbed its claws into the stonework. Etain watched, stunned, as it climbed the wall and made its way to the next ledge above. The strill appeared to understand what was said to it, even hand signals. But she had no idea what it was doing.
“Oya, Mird!”
The strill balanced on its four rear legs and then sprang into the abyss.
“Oh my—”
And then Etain suddenly realized why the strill looked so bizarre. It spread all six legs, and the loose, ugly skin that made it appear such a shambling mess was stretched taut by the air pressure beneath it. It glided effortlessly down in a perfect stoop onto the balcony opposite.
Vau took off his helmet and wiped his brow. His face was a study in complete admiration and… yes, love.
“Clever Mird,” he murmured. “Clever baby!”
“It’s a glider!”
“Extraordinary animals, strills.”
“It’s going to fetch the datapad?”
Vau paused. Etain could see a smile forming on his lips. “Yes.”
“Is it male or female?”
“Both,” Vau said. “Mird has been with me since I joined the Mandalorians. Strills live far longer than humans. Who’ll care for it when I’m dead?”
“I’m sure someone will value it greatly.”
“I want it to be cared for, not valued.”
Vau replaced his helmet. They waited. Etain strained to see when the animal emerged from the apartment with, she imagined, the datapad clamped in its teeth. Or maybe it had more surprises in store, like a pouch, as Jinart the Gurlanin had.
She stared, aghast.
Mird had dragged Perrive’s body out onto the balcony and was worrying at it. She believed the animal was trying to tear out the datapad right up to the moment that it got a good grip with its massive jaws on the corpse’s shoulder and hauled it up onto the safety rail.
“What’s it doing?”
Vau laughed. Mird balanced the body on the rail like a sack of stones, wobbled a little, and then launched itself into the air. Etain was stunned by its ability to move a man weighing at least eighty kilos, but not half as stunned as when she saw its free fall turn into a vertical climb as it struck out and its parachute of skin became wing membranes.
Mird soared like a raptor, carrying its prey.
Mird flew.
“Fierfek…,” Etain said. There was no other word for it.
“Language!” Vau said, clearly amused. Mird thudded onto the ledge and hauled Perrive up behind it. Vau crouched as best he could on the narrow strip of stone and felt inside the tunic for the datapad. “Got it. Let’s go. Good Mird! Clever Mird! Mirdala Mird’ika!” He opened his comlink. “Kal, Perrive’s no longer a problem, and we have a useful datapad. See you shortly.”
Mird was ecstatic, whimpering and slobbering in delight as Vau rubbed its head. As retrievers went, it could have no equal.
“What about the body?” Etain said, still stunned. “Are we just leaving it here? On an office window ledge?”
“It’ll give CSF’s forensics team a fascinating project to keep them occupied,” Vau said. “And we didn’t even have to enter a diplomatic compound, did we?”
Etain, now used to death and assassination, couldn’t help herself. She reached over and rubbed the strill’s head, too, although it stank and could probably kill her in a single vast bite. It was still miraculous.
“Clever Mird!” she said. “Clever!”
Somewhere near CoruFresh Farm Produce distribution division,
Quadrant F-76,
2150 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
“That armor suits you, Bard’ika.”
Skirata sat astride the speeder’s pillion seat, datapad and chrono at the ready. The operation was under way. Perrive was dead. Now it was time for Skirata to check that the credit transfer had been made.
He watched the screen that showed the status of the temporary bank account that would vanish without trace or audit trail in just over a day.
“I suspect the Jedi Council wouldn’t agree.” Jusik adjusted the bags on the bike’s cargo straps. “Not even if General Kenobi himself wears armor.”
“You don’t worry much about that,” said Skirata.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.
”
“A Mando mercenary has to plan for the future these days, son, even if there turns out to be no future at all. And so should you.”
Jusik laughed. “I thought you Mando’ade lived only for the day. You even have trouble using anything but the present tense.”
Skirata’s eyes never left the datapad’s screen. Then it reloaded, and suddenly an anonymous numbered account in a bank on Aargau was four million credits in the black. Skirata hit VERIFY and the credits were there.
Yes, this was real. He had the credits.
He felt one tension evaporate from his chest and another—familiar, comfortable, an old friend—take its place. He was ready to fight. He opened the comlink to the whole strike team.
“Stand by, vode, stand by. The credits have cleared. We’re moving in to make the drop now.”
“Ordo here, copy that.”
“Delta here, copy that.”
“Mereel here, copy that.”
“Do we get ten percent?” Fi muttered.
Jusik powered up the speeder bike. “You’d be amazed what you might get out of this, Fi.” The speeder shot up into the air and spun ninety degrees before Jusik aimed it at the CoruFresh depot. “Preferably not a broken neck, though.”
“Sorry, Kal,” said Jusik.
Skirata checked his chrono: 2155.
A good rousing chant of Dha Werda might have psyched him up better, but this was a different battlefield.
“Bard’ika, those explosive packs are well wrapped, aren’t they?”
“Thoroughly. They’re really affecting the handling of this speeder, too.”
“We’ve got a few minutes. Take it easy.”
“Udesii…” Jusik grinned. “If things get a little hairy out there, I can use my Force powers, can’t I?”
“No witnesses. Go ahead.”
Jusik took the speeder high over the landing strip, and Skirata noted Ordo and Sev flat on the roof of the warehouse as they spiraled down to land. The two soldiers didn’t move. Omega and Delta were nowhere to be seen. That reassured him enormously. It had been a joy to train commandos who became better soldiers than he could ever be.
Tonight would test them, though. There were enough explosives in the area now to take out a quadrant and well beyond. Fine on a battlefield—but not in a city.
Careful. Go careful.
The speeder settled and hung at rest just above the ground. A group of five men and the middle-aged woman he’d seen at the meeting earlier were the welcoming committee, and they all had blasters visible on belts or held loosely at their sides. They directed Jusik to a spot between two trucks, sheltered from anyone who might pass by.
Skirata and Jusik got off the speeder bike and stood with their arms at their sides, calm and business-like. Skirata removed his helmet. Jusik kept his buy’ce on.
“The credits cleared fine,” Skirata said.
The woman inspected the speeder, which was laden like a Tatooine bantha with anonymous bags of rough sacking. “This is all the five-hundred-grade?”
“Four hundred quarter-kilo packs, bagged in tens. I suggest you split the load for safety.”
The woman shrugged. “We know how to handle explosives.” She reached out to unfasten one bag and squatted down to slide the ten bundled packets onto the ground. She squinted at the thick packaging and took out a knife from her pocket.
Skirata didn’t need to see Jusik’s face to know that the blood had drained from it.
Don’t stick anything metallic into it. The electrolytic reaction will set it off.
Mereel’s little chemical enhancement to thwart the bomb makers in the event of their getting away with any of the explosives was about to kill them all.
“Whoa!” Skirata sighed irritably and hoped to the Force that he didn’t sound the terrified man he was right then. “Don’t shove a knife in that, woman! Unwrap it properly. Here, let me do it. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
There was a collective involuntary gasp in his comlink earpiece, a very restrained one. He heard Ordo mutter, “Osik…”
“You insolent little Mandalorian thug,” she sneered, but she stood back to let him take over. And she held her blaster to his head.
Skirata ripped the bundle open with nervous hands and broke out one packet, tearing the flexiwrap with his teeth to expose the soft light brown contents. It tasted… oddly sweet.
“Here. Believe me?”
The woman scowled at him and squeezed the explosive between her fingers. “I’m checking that this isn’t just dyed detonite.”
“Tell you what,” Skirata said, wondering if Jusik might try a spot of mind influence right then, “pick as many packs as you like at random and I’ll unwrap them, and then you can prove to yourself that they’re not booby-trapped, either.”
He heard Ordo’s voice in his ear. “Kal’buir, you’re scaring us…”
“Okay.” The woman pointed to another bag on the speeder bike. “That one. Empty it in front of me.”
Skirata obeyed. He unwrapped the bundle and waited for her to choose a pack at random. He tore it open and let her inspect it. She repeated the process three times.
Skirata stood up, hands on hips, and sighed theatrically. “I’ve got all night, sweetheart. Have you?”
The woman looked into his face as if she liked the idea of killing him anyway. “Bag it up and get out of here.”
He glanced at his chrono: 2220. Obrim would be getting jumpy now, with squads of CSF officers waiting throughout Galactic City to raid the long list of suspect addresses he’d given them.
“You heard the lady.” He shoved Jusik in the back. “Get on with it.”
The last few seconds before a hasty exit were always the most terrifying. A hairbreadth lay between victory and defeat, life and death. Jusik secured the last of the bags and dumped the rest from the speeder in a pile between the trucks.
“Now get lost,” she said.
“I take it I can’t count you as a repeat customer, then?”
She raised the blaster eloquently. Skirata replaced his helmet and swung onto the speeder bike behind Jusik. They lifted into the air and climbed above the warehouse.
“Fierfek,” said Darman’s voice in his ear. “I hate it when you improvise, Sarge.”
“Like you don’t.”
“Standing by.”
Ordo cut in. “The woman’s loading all the explosives except a single bag into one truck. The one with the green livery nearest the loading bay. I repeat, negative the green truck. Do not target the green truck or it’s good-bye to half of Coruscant.”
“Females never listen to a thing I say, thankfully,” Skirata said. He knew she’d react like that. “So that means there’s only one vessel we can’t blow up.”
“Priority is to isolate the green truck and ground it before engaging other targets.”
“Copy that, sir,” a chorus said.
Jusik set the speeder down three hundred meters behind the warehouse in a cluster of shuttered wholesalers’ units. Skirata sat breathing deeply for a moment to steady himself before opening his comlink again with a double click of his back teeth.
“Obrim, this is Skirata.”
“Got you, Kal.”
“You can roll now, my friend. Talk to you later.”
“Copy that.” Obrim’s channel snapped into silence.
“Omega, Delta, all units, this is Kal. We’re clear. All yours, Captain.”
“Copy that, Sargeant.” Ordo began counting down. “Five, four, three, two… go go go! Oya!”
A bitter little war with far-reaching consequences was unleashed in downtown Galactic City.
Chapter Twenty-Two
We will watch you, I promise. You will not see us or hear us or even know we stand beside you. How does that feel, Jedi? How does it feel to be at the mercy of a species with powers even you don’t have? Now you know how others regard you. Keep your promises, General, or you will see how hard a small, invisible army can strike.
&nb
sp; —Jinart the Gurlanin, to General Arligan Zey, on the pledge to relocate all human colonists from Qiilura within eighteen months
CoruFresh depot,
2225—H Hour
At 2225 hours Triple Zero time, Fi and Mereel broke from behind the low wall at the southern edge of the landing strip and positioned themselves between the parked repulsor trucks at the far side facing the warehouse.
Fi focused the infrared scope of his DC-17 on the green truck and saw a bright patch of heat on the fuselage. He tilted up and saw the dim patchwork indicating the varying temperatures of a human’s upper body, a pilot waiting to depart.
“I’ve got a target in the pilot’s seat of the green truck, and his drive’s showing up warm on the infrared scope. Is the explosive loaded? Can anyone confirm?”
“I can see the rear of the truck. They’ve closed the hatch with two targets inside as well as the pilot.” Ordo paused. “The green truck is now confirmed as laden. We have to keep that vessel grounded, vode. We can’t detonate it, not here.”
“Dar, you got a clear shot at the pilot?”
There was the sound of fast breathing and a grunt as someone dropped next to him. Fi looked left and saw Darman kneeling on one leg with his Verpine rifle raised, elbow braced on his knee. A Verp slug was guaranteed to punch a hole in the truck’s viewscreen and kill the pilot without triggering the five-hundred-grade. “Got him lined up. Standing by.”
Fi swung his Deece to locate Ordo on the roof. He couldn’t see Sev, but Ordo’s helmet range finder was just visible as he turned his head.
“Delta,” Ordo said, “stand by to take the rear of the green truck when we kill the illumigrids. Omega, target all walking targets on the landing strip.”
Kal’s voice cut in. “Ord’ika—we’re at the rear of the warehouse blocking the back doors. Force is estimating twenty-four live targets in all, I’m told.”
Fi refocused his scope on the interior of the warehouse. He could see at least nine men and women scurrying around inside, and two more visible via infrared, ripping open crates and bundling small boxes and blasters into bags. “I’ve got a minimum of eleven contacts around and inside the warehouse and it looks like they’ve got a small arsenal in there. Good news is that it’s just one big empty space with partitioned offices down one wall.”
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