“Nikto are supposed to be tough.”

“Humans can be tough, too.”

He seemed distressed. It was severe enough for her to feel the Force around him become that dark vortex again. “Kal, who's finding this more unpleasant, you or me?”

“Me.”

“I thought so.”

“It comes back to you at times like this.”

“So who … trained Omega?” She felt the faintest shimmer of distress in Ordo now.

“Me,” said Skirata.

“Oh.”

“Would you have let anyone else do it if you were me?”

“No.” She knew immediately; she didn't even have to think about it. It would have been an act of abandonment, letting someone else do the dirty work to salve your own conscience, with the same outcome. “No, I wouldn't.”

“Well …” He shut his eyes for a moment. “If I can train my boys, then you should have no trouble doing what Vau can't.”

“Tell me what's at stake.”

“For who? The Republic?” Kal asked. “I think it's marginal, to be honest. In real terms, terrorism doesn't even dent it. Casualties in the thousands, that's all. It's fear of it that does the damage.”

“So why are you in so deep?”

“Who's getting hit hardest? Clone troopers.”

“But thousands of troops are dying in the front line every day. Numerically—”

“Yeah, I can't do much about the war. I trained quite a few men to stay alive. But all that's left for me is to do what I can, where I can.”

“Personal war, isn't it?” Etain said.

“You think so? I don't care if the Republic falls or not. I'm a mercenary. Everyone's my potential employer.”

“So where does the anger come from? I know anger, you see. As Jedi we guard against it all the time.”

“You won't like the answer.”

“I don't like a lot of things lately, but I still have to deal with them.”

“Okay. Day by day, I get more bitter when I see Mandalorian men—and that's what they are, whether you like it or not—used and discarded in a war in which they have no stake.” Skirata, sitting right behind Ordo, put his hand gently on the captain's armored shoulder. “But not on my watch.”

Etain had no answer to that. She hadn't articulated it in racial terms, and she knew that Mandalorians weren't a race as such. But there hadn't been one day since she had parted from Omega Squad on Qiilura nine months ago that she hadn't agonized over the use of soldiers who had no choice, no rights, and no future in the Republic that they gave their lives to defend.

It was wrong.

There was a point somewhere at which the means did not justify the ends, no matter what the numbers argued. Like this violent, passionate little man beside her, Etain didn't refuse her role in the war out of principle, because that would have been no more than shutting her eyes to it.

Men would still die.

And if the Jedi Council could accept the need to let that happen to save the Republic, then she could sink to a level she had never believed possible to save soldiers she knew as people.

“I'll try not to let you down,” she said.

“You mean me?” said Skirata.

And you, she thought.

Safe house, Brewery zone, Coruscant Quadrant J-47, 1000 hours, 371 days after Geonosis

Skirata had been expecting the safe house to be in another seedy part of the city where unusual activity was part of the landscape.

But Enacca had surpassed herself this time. The property was a small apartment in a refurbished quarter known as the Brewery; the construction droids were still working on some of the buildings, facing them with tasteful durasteel wrought-work. Zey was going to have a fit when he saw the bill for this one land on his desk.

“I think that's what our brothers might call kandosii,” Ordo said, bringing the speeder up to the landing platform. It had a discreet awning to shield it from view, although Coruscant was so traffic-packed that enemy surveillance from tall buildings—Skirata's dread—was less of a threat than usual here. Lines of sight were frequently obscured. “I'll be back later. Errands to run, Kal'buir.”

When the lobby doors closed behind them, the constant throb and hum of Coruscant was completely silenced. Ah. Top-range soundproofing. Enacca was a very smart Wookiee. Vau's job could be noisy. There was no point upsetting the neighbors in cheaper parts of town that had less efficient soundproofing.

And it was the last place Orjul's colleagues would come looking for him.

Etain had her arms folded tightly across her chest, her light brown wavy hair scraped back in a braid except for the wiry bits that had escaped and sprung into coils. Even her new civilian clothes already looked as if she had slept in them. She had a veil of freckles and an awkward gait; just a schoolgirl armed with a lightsaber, nothing more.

“You up to this, ad'ika?” Little one: Skirata slipped accidentally into being the reassuring father. But he reserved judgment. Like him, she might just have made a point of looking a lot less trouble than she actually was. “If not, walk away now”. And if she did, what would he have to do? She already knew dangerous numbers of people and places.

“No. I'm not backing out now.”

He thought she might suddenly reveal a powerful charisma or sweetness that would explain why this scrap of skin, bone, and unkempt hair had so riveted Darman. But she was just a kid, a Jedi kid with a lot of responsibility that showed in her young face and old eyes.

Skirata pressed on the entry buzzer into the main apartment, and after a moment the doors whispered apart. The strong smell that hit him on the moist air reminded him of walking into a barn full of frightened animals. It was so distinctive that he almost didn't notice the scent of the strill. But Mird was nowhere to be seen.

Vau, sitting at the table, looked tired. He still seemed like a professor who wasn't very happy with his class, but the physical effort showed in deeper lines from nose to mouth and the way he was drumming his fingers on the table in front of him. It was his trick for staying awake.

The man who had his head resting on the same table in front of him didn't look awake at all. Vau leaned forward and lifted the man's head by his hair, peered into his face, and set him down carefully again.

“You're the relief watch, then, Jedi?” Vau got up and stretched extravagantly, joints clicking, and indicated the empty chair. “All yours.”

Etain looked surprised. Skirata had expected her to register horror at the blood spatter on the otherwise pristine cream walls, but she just looked at Vau as if she was expecting to see someone else.

“Where are the other two?” Skirata asked.

“Nikto number one is M'truli, and he's secured in the small bedroom.” Vau was perfectly polite: this was just business after all, and even Skirata felt too centered on the task at hand to resume their feud where it had left off. “Nikto number two is Gysk, and he's in the study.”

“Your tunic could do with a wash.”

“It's the little horns. You can't punch a Nikto. Had to use something else.”

Etain sat down in Vau's seat and placed her hands flat on the table, still looking puzzled. Skirata leaned against the wall. Vau wandered into the 'fresher: water tinkled into a basin.

“You want to tell me what you know,” Etain said soothingly. “You want to give me the names of the people you operate with.”

Orjul twitched. He raised his head from the table with some difficulty and stared into her face for a second.

Then he spat in it.

Etain jerked back, visibly shocked, and wiped away the pink-stained spittle with one hand. Then she composed herself again.

“Keep your stinking mind tricks to yourself, Jedi,” Orjul hissed.

Skirata didn't expect her to break at that point. And she didn't: she simply sat there, although he knew it wasn't blank inactivity. She had been trained from childhood just like the clone army, except the first weapon she seized would be her control of the Force and her ability to read it like clamoring comlink signals.