Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero rc-3

by Karen Traviss

  “If I knew where here was, I might agree.”

  “We'll let you walk out and then you'll see.”

  “I can land speeders on your roof, can I?”

  “Up to Metrocab size.”

  “I'll probably bring two small speeders. I'll call you half an hour before.”

  “I haven't given you my number.”

  “Better do that, then, or you won't get your goods. I don't want any further contact until then—and I don't want anyone following me when I leave here. Okay?”

  Perrive nodded. “Agreed.”

  And it was that simple. It never ceased to amaze Skirata how much simpler it was to buy and sell death than it was to pay taxes. “Show me to the front door, then.”

  Shaven-Head took him down in the polished durasteel turbolift—it always reminded him of Kamino, that brutally clinical finish—and walked him through a ground floor that was just one square room with no rear exit and one door at the front.

  Easier to defend—if you were confident you could escape via the roof.

  The doors parted. Kal Skirata stepped out onto a secluded walkway and found himself in affluent Coruscanti suburbia. He checked the position of the sun and began walking in the direction of the main skylanes. If he kept walking east, he'd come to the office sector sooner or later. Besides, the holo-cam that Fi and Sev placed a few hours earlier was watching him right now from the building opposite.

  There were a lot of pedestrians about.

  Skirata clicked his back teeth and opened the comlink channel. He didn't like the bead comlink any better than he liked wearing a hearing enhancer.

  “Listen up, ad'ike,” he said as quietly as he could. “Game on. Game on!”

  Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 0940 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  “Do I look as if I've been flattened by a … PIP laser?” Besany Wennen asked.

  “PEP laser.” Ordo, posing as Corr again, helmet tucked under his left arm, let her pass through the logistics center's doors ahead of him as Kal'buir had told him. It was the polite thing to do. “And no. You just look tired.”

  “I can't say it's been a typical day's duty for me.”

  “I respect your willingness to accept this without wanting to complain to your superiors.”

  “If I did, I'd compromise your mission, wouldn't I?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then it's just a bad bruise and an interesting evening. No more.”

  She was as tall as he was and looked him straight in the eye: her dark eyes made her light blond hair seem exotic in contrast. She's different. She's special. He made a conscious effort to concentrate.

  “I'll make sure you have acceptable records for your bosses to show that the investigation was completed,” Ordo said.

  “And that the suspects … let's say that I learned they were of interest to military intelligence, so I withdrew from further involvement?”

  “Well, I can guarantee they won't be troubling you any longer.”

  Ordo was still waiting for her to ask exactly what Vau had done to the real Vinna Jiss, and what Ordo was going to do to the employees leaking information—Jinart had identified two—and a thousand other questions. He would have wanted to know everything, but Wennen just stuck to what she needed to know to close down her part of the surveillance. He didn't understand that reaction at all.

  “What happens to you now?” he asked.

  “I go back to my own department in the morning and pick up the next file. Probably corporate tax evasion.” She slowed him down with a careful hand on his arm. He let that touch thrill him now. He was still uneasy, but he was less disturbed by the attraction. “What about you?”

  “Reducing payroll numbers. Fi suggested we call it staff turnover, in the spirit of military euphemism.”

  It seemed to take her a couple of moments to work out what he meant. She frowned slightly. “Won't whoever they're reporting to notice they're missing?”

  “Jinart says they only call in every four or five days. That gives us a time window to work within.”

  “Aren't you ever afraid?”

  “When the shooting starts, frequently.” It struck him that she probably found the idea of assassination uncomfortable, but she didn't say so. “But not as afraid as I would be if I were operating without weapons. Your superiors really should arm you.”

  They reached the doors to the operations room. She stopped dead.

  “I know this has nothing to do with me any longer, but will you do something for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “I want to know when you make it through this.” She seemed to lose some composure. “And your brothers, and your ferocious little sergeant, of course. I rather like him. Will you call me? I don't need details. Just a word to let me know that it went okay, whatever it is.”

  “I think we can manage that,” Ordo said.

  This was where he turned left to go to Accounts, to find Hela Madiry, a woman clerk nearing retirement age—just an ordinary woman who happened to have distant cousins on Jabiim. Then he would pay a visit to Transport Maintenance, and look up a young man who had no family allegiance or ideology in this war but who liked the credits that the Separatists paid him. Their motives made no difference: they would both die very soon.

  “Be careful … Trooper Corr,” Besany said.

  Ordo touched gloved fingers to his forehead in an informal salute.

  “You too, ma'am. You too.”

  Business zone 6, walkway 10 at the junction of skylane 348, 0950 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  Fi braced for a verbal barrage as Jusik brought the speeder to a stop at the end of the walkway and settled it on the edge of the taxi platform. Skirata walked up to them straight-faced through the scattering of pedestrians and stood with his hands thrust in the pockets of his leather jacket.

  “You're leading Fi astray, Bard'ika.”

  “I'm sorry, but you told me that you should never enter an enemy stronghold without backup if you could help it.”

  “I hate it when people take notice of me. Fi, what's wrong?”

  Fi was still looking around, trying to cover three dimensions that might conceal a threat. Jusik had said that whoever was following Skirata had no malicious intention, but Fi reasoned that not everyone who was going to kill you had a sense of malice. He'd killed plenty of people without any ill feeling whatsoever. While the Force was fascinating, Fi liked to see things through the scope of his Deece, preferably with the red target acquisition icon pulsing.

  He put his hand under his jacket to slide the rifle from under his arm. This was when the unusually short barrel and folding stock came into their own. You could still use the weapon at short range. “Bard'ika thinks there's someone following you.”

  “I normally notice!”

  “But you're deaf.”

  “Partially, you cheeky dilcut.” Skirata resorted to his reflex of straightening his right arm to have his knife ready. “Well, maybe we'd better move on before they catch up?”

  “Nobody with ill intent,” Jusik said. He slid his hand to the opening of his jacket, suddenly edgy. Fi took his cue and swung off the speeder to stand in front of Skirata. “And they're very, very close.”

  “Steady, son. Public place, people around. No lightsaber, okay?”

  “Very close.” Jusik looked past Skirata.

  A young man with short white-blond hair was striding toward them through the sparse crowd, arms held a little away from his sides, a large bag over one shoulder. His knee-length dark blue coat was wide open. But that didn't mean he wasn't carrying an armory under there somewhere. Fi unfolded the Verp's stock one-handed under his jacket and prepared to draw it and fire.

  The man then held both hands up at shoulder level and grinned.

  “Fierfek,” Skirata breathed. “Udesii, lads. It's okay.”

  The blond man—Fi's height, very athletic—walked straight up to Skirata and crushed him in an enthusiastic hu
g. “Su'cuy, Buir!”

  Father. Fi knew the voice.

  “Suc'uy, ad'ika. Tion vaii gar ru'cuyi?”

  “N'oya'kari gihaal, Buir” The man looked almost tearful: his pale blue eyes were brimming. He wiped them with the heel of his hand. “If I'm not careful I'll wash out this iris dye.”

  “That hair doesn't suit you, either.”

  “I can change that, too. I've got lots of different colors. Did you like what I added to the five-hundred-grade thermal?”

  “Ah. I did wonder.”

  “I'm still a better chemist than Ord'ika, Kal'buir”

  Fi finally saw the face in front of him as a negative image, and suddenly imagined dark hair and eyes, and realized why the man was familiar. He wasn't one of Skirata's own sons. He was a clone, just like Fi: or, to be precise, just like Ordo. It was astonishing how much difference pigmentation alone made to someone's appearance: a simple but effective disguise, for casual use anyway.

  Skirata beamed at him with evident pride. “Lads, this is ARC Trooper Lieutenant N-7,” he said. “My boy Mereel.”

  So this was Mereel. And even though Fi's Mando'a wasn't perfect, he understood that Skirata had asked him where he'd been, and that the ARC trooper had said that he'd been hunting fish-meal.

  Fi was fascinated. But he kept his fascination to himself.

  19

  I had no mother and no father. I was four years old when they first put a weapon in my hands. I was taught to suppress my feelings, and to respect and obey my Masters. I was encouraged to be obsessive about perfection. It wasn't the life I would have chosen, but the one ordained becauseof my genes—just like the men I'm expected to command. But now I have something wonderful, something I have chosen. And I will never let anyone take the child I'm carrying.

  –General Etain Tur-Mukan, private journal

  GAR logistics center, 1230 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  It was lunchtime.

  The biggest decision most people made at that time of day in the logistics center was whether to eat in the cafeteria or find a spot in the public courtyard nearby to enjoy an open-air snack.

  Ordo's decision was whether to use the Verpine, or walk up to the traitor Hela Madiry, maneuver her into a shadowy alcove, and then garrote her or cut her throat.

  Verpine. Best choice. Fast and silent, as long as the projectile didn't pass through her and hit something that made a noise.

  Madiry sat in the shadow of a planter filled with vivid yellow shrubs, eating a mealbread stick and reading a holozine, oblivious to her life expectancy. Ordo sat in the shade of a manicured tree with his datapad on his lap, calculating her remaining life in minutes.

  There was nobody within ten meters of her, but there was a security holocam.

  A man sat down on the bench beside him. “Well, our young friend in Transport Maintenance just had an unfortunate accident with a repulsorlift platform. Thanks for the use of your security codes.”

  “And he didn't turn into a Gurlanin, I hope.”

  Mereel looked utterly alien with light hair and eyes. Even his skin was tinted two shades paler. It didn't suit him. “No, vod'ika, he turned into a dead human. Skulls and repulsorlifts don't mix. Trust me.”

  “Just checking.”

  “You haven't told Kal'huir about Ko Sai yet, have you?” Mereel asked.

  “I thought he might be less distracted if we wait until this mission is completed.”

  “He's a true verd, a warrior. He's never distracted when the shooting starts.”

  “There's no rush,” Ordo said.

  Mereel shrugged. Out of armor and kama, he slouched in a convincingly civilian manner. “So, shall I wander off?”

  Ordo was watching the security holocam that covered the area between the woman and the public refreshers twenty meters beyond. “Can you disrupt that holocam circuit for me on my mark?”

  Mereel felt in his coat for something and pulled out a slim stylus. It was an EMP disruptor. “I can do it without leaving my seat, ner vod.”

  “Okay, I'll give you a reminder to kill the cam when I'm five meters from her.”

  Mereel tapped his ear. “Comlink on.”

  Ordo took a few slows breaths. He had removed the folding stock from the Verpine rifle; it was now short enough to conceal under a document holder. He looked like any other anonymous, helmeted, convalescing clone trooper playing office boy and carting archived flimsi around.

  “Go,” Ordo said, and stood up.

  He walked toward the refreshers, which took him on a path past the Madiry woman.

  “Mereel, kill the cam.”

  He had a few moments now before a security console spotted the outtage and tried to fix it. He took five fast strides and bent over Madiry as if to ask her a question.

  She looked up as if an old friend had startled her. “Hello, trooper.”

  “Hello, aruetii,” Ordo said. He drew the Verp and put two rounds point-blank through her forehead and a third down at an angle through her upper chest. One round thudded through into the planter of soil behind her. Ordo had no idea where the other two went, but the informant was now dead and she simply slumped, head down as if still reading, a pool of her bright blood on the holozine's screen.

  Ordo slipped the Verp back under the document folder and walked away. It had taken less than ten seconds from cuing Mereel to walking away.

  Nobody even looked at him as he strode calmly toward the GAR complex, passed it, and met Mereel on the other side of the speeder parking bays. They disappeared into the sea of vehicles and mounted the Aratech speeder bike to head back to base.

  Kal'buir had always told the Nulls they were instant death on legs. Ordo liked to live up to that assessment. His thoughts were on Besany Wennen as he rode off, and how it was good that he hadn't had to kill her, too.

  Operational house, Qibbu's Hut, 1330 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  The more the tagged targets moved around Coruscant, the clearer the strike team's task became.

  “That,” Fi said admiringly, “gets better every time I look at it, Bard'ika.”

  Jusik stared at the Coruscant holochart with a big grin and basked in the approval. The telltale red traces of the marked terrorists as they moved around the city were forming a pattern that firsthand surveillance would have struggled to build up.

  “It was obvious, really,” he said. “You'd have come up with it yourselves sooner or later.”

  Vau put down a bowl of milk in front of the strill. It lapped noisily, showering droplets across the carpet. “I vote that Dust-tagging becomes standard surveillance procedure. It's a matter for your sergeant, of course.”

  The police interloper's trace had been removed. Jailer Obrim had given her a painless and unnoticeable EMP sweep to kill transmissions from the marker powder she had inhaled. Now just five marked targets moved around the grids of blue light, building an accurate picture of where they went and where they stayed. The division between the two was now very much easier to see. Four locations—the house in banking sector 9, the landing strip used by the fresh farm produce importers, and two apartments in the retail sector—were clearly the most visited.

  “But we probably only tagged Perrive's hired help,” Fi said. “We want the bigger guys.”

  “The bigger guys,” Vau said, “need the hired help by their side. All this activity is connected to the fact that they're about to receive explosives they badly need. Now, we know they used dead letter drops, for want of a better phrase, to avoid direct contact between the various terror cells in the network. It's how they ensure there's no way of tracing them back. So what does this tell you?”

  Fi studied the hypnotic blue and red light in front of him. “They're moving back and forth between locations over and over.”

  “And therefore?”

  “Therefore … they're either one cell … or they're several cells who have abandoned security precautions and are making direct contact with each other.”

  “Well done, Fi.”
>
  Fi didn't care for Vau but he enjoyed praise. He savored the moment. “So what do you think we've got here?”

  “Given that this centered on the explosives, I think we're looking at the manufacturing cell—the people who make the bombs. Possibly also the ones who place them. Setting a complex device in a location or on a vessel can be a fiddly business, and I reckon this lot would do it themselves. They need to be mobile to get to different target locations, too, hence the need for a busy landing strip—nobody notices more traffic movement there. Now, Fi, that's a group of people worth taking out. Those are hard skills to replace in a hurry.”

  Jusik gave Fi a playful punch on the shoulder, elated. “Result!” He seemed to see it as a big puzzle to be taken apart. If Fi hadn't seen Jusik use a lightsaber, he would have taken him for a boy who just liked playing with complicated kit. “Time to make their eyes water, eh, Fi?”

  “You got it.”

  “Delta has recce'd the landing strip. You've reece'd the house in the banking sector. That just leaves the two apartments, and Ordo and Mereel have stopped off to recce those now.”

  The strill had finished its milk, most of which had ended up on the carpet. Vau—a sergeant who believed in thrashing courage into his men, a sergeant who had scarred Atin badly—grabbed a cloth from the kitchen area and mopped up the damp patches. Then he took a clean rag, soaked it, and wiped the strill's mouth and jowls as if it were a baby. The animal accepted the indignity and rumbled with happiness.

  Fi wasn't sure he would ever know what went on in the heads of nonclones.

  Delta and Omega assembled in the main room, finding seats where they could, and spent the next hour planning three house assaults and a raid on an airstrip. They were basic maneuvers they had drilled for time and again on Kamino; they'd done it for real more than once, too. They had fairly recent plans of the buildings—not to be relied upon absolutely, of course—and covert holocam surveillance. Apart from the fact that the squads were used to operating alone, it was as near a done deal as an operation could be.