They slipped out of the taxi's twin hatches and activated Fi's holochart of the sector to check where the ramp led and where the exits were. They stared at the meshed blue and red lines on the holochart, courtesy of the fire department's database. Fi hoped it was up to date.

“That takes them straight up to the retail plaza.”

Fi's immediate thoughts were of civilians, obstructed arcs of fire, and his own limited senses being a poor substitute for his Katarn helmet's gadgetry. But I'm more than my armor. Sergeant Kal said so.

He edged along the wall, staying out of sight. Can't deploy tracking remotes, not here, not in public. “I might do a little shopping myself.”

“Just keep that dumb-grunt expression on your face, Mongrel Boy. It suits you.”

Sev took out his datapad and switched the screen to reflective mode, turning his back and holding the device a little out to his right. “She's just going over the top of the ramp … yeah, she's peeled off on the first level. She's following Lounge Lizard so far. Come on. Let's go around the bridge route and pick them up here.”

“You have as bad an attitude toward ethnic diversity as you have toward the regular army,” Fi said quietly, relaxing his shoulders with every intention of just being a soldier on leave in his dark red fatigues—with a blaster on his belt, like any sensible Coruscanti.

The next hour was unplanned, unexpected, but not untrained for.

Fi hoped he'd make it through alive.

Coruscant Security Force Staff and Social Club, 1300 hours, private booth, senior officers' bar

Kal Skirata had his peripheral vision and half an ear trained on the general murmur at the bar. He felt bad about applying caution to these men: they had much the same thankless task as his boys. But there was a possibility that the leak was within their ranks. He couldn't let comradeship cloud his judgment.

He hoped Obrim wasn't offended by the distortion field he'd set up. The little emitter sat discreetly on the table between the glasses like a rolled-up pellet of flimsi, ready to bounce any bugging signals.

“If it's one of mine, I'll personally put a round through him,” Obrim said.

Skirata didn't doubt it. “You could put a fake lure in the system and see who goes for it.”

“But even if it's one of us, then they'd still need data from the GAR to complete the loop. It's one thing having the holo-cam images of military targets and movements. It's another knowing where they'll be to start with.”

“Okay, then. I have to put someone inside GAR logistics.” There was only one choice: Ordo. “If we find a link to your people, though, I have to cut you loose. I'm sorry.”

“I'm not exactly being kept in the loop on all this anyway, am I?”

“If I told you where my squads were operating, and they happened to get into a bit of trouble that attracted the attention of your people, you might have to call them off. Then everyone would know we had a strike team deployed.”

“I know. I'm just worried that your personnel will attract the attention of some of my overzealous colleagues, and one of us will be sending wreaths to next of kin.”

“My boys don't have next of kin. Only me.”

“Kal …”

“I can't. I just can't. This has to be deniable.” He liked Obrim. He was a kindred spirit, a pragmatic man who didn't trust easily. “But if something looks like it's going to get out of hand, and I can warn you off, I will.”

Obrim swirled the dregs of his ale in the glass. “Okay. Sure you don't want one of these?”

“I only have one at night to help me sleep. Habit from Kamino. Sleep got pretty hard to come by.”

“You'll have to tell me about that one day. I bet they didn't have any crime in Tipoca City.”

“Oh, there was crime, all right.” The worst kind: if he ever met another Kaminoan, he knew what he'd do. “Nothing you could have arrested anyone for, though.”

“When's your boy Fi going to stop by for a drink? We owe him one from the siege. Brave kid.”

“Yeah. He throws himself instinctively on a grenade, and he's a hero. If he fires instinctively and slots a civilian, though, he's a monster.”

“And don't we know it, pal. Happens to us, too.”

“Anyway, Fi's on a routine patrol at the moment.” Skirata checked his chrono. Green Watch was due to relieve Red in two hours. “I'll bring him down here, don't worry. He's probably bored out of his skull at the moment. Anti-terror ops can be tedious.”

“Sitting around, more sitting around, even more sitting around, then scramble, sheer panic, and bang.”

“Yeah, I think that sums it up.” Skirata drained his glass of juice. “I just hope we get to the bang part in time.”

Level 4 retail plaza, Quadrant B-85, Coruscant, 1310 hours; Red Watch observing targets on foot

They should have called it in and let one of the other teams pick it up. But sometimes you had to run with it.

Fi was now on autopilot, reacting to training he hadn't realized he'd absorbed so thoroughly, and Sev was matching him pace for pace.

The shopping plaza was a mass of color, random people, and even more bewildering smells and sounds. This was life in the field without a helmet, and Fi didn't like it. Just ahead, Vinna Jiss wandered casually, moving along one diagonal line then another, and then pausing to stare into transparisteel windows full of things Fi had no idea that people bought—or wore.

Sev glanced at him. He didn't even have to say it.

She looks in an awful lot of shop windows. She doesn't follow a straight path. She thinks she knows how to avoid a tail, but she's learned it from the holovids. Amateur Weak link.

“Bardan … ,” Sev said quietly.

The Jedi's voice was a whisper in Fi's ear. “I know where you are. Don't worry.”

“Not worried.” Sev glanced away from the target and Fi turned around casually toward her, looking past her but keeping her in his peripheral vision. “Can't see the Falleen now …”

“Moving on,” Fi said.

They let Jiss walk on until she was almost lost in the crowd, and then started moving again. A well-planned surveillance operation would have positioned mobile and fixed teams in the area to simply watch and hand off the target to the next team along the route. But they were on their own. And they had never planned to follow a suspect.

“This is what Kal said we should never do,” said Fi.

“You got a better idea?”

“Reckon she's seen us?”

“If she has, she hasn't reacted.”

“Why would she? If she's what we think she is, then we're just targets to her”

The plaza was busy. There was a restaurant on the left-hand side with tables and chairs in the open air. Jiss sat down. Sev and Fi walked on past her, and if Fi looked like an overwhelmed clone who'd spent his life cloistered in military environments, then he wasn't acting. Even Qibbu's Hut felt more familiar than this.

It wasn't the urban environment. It was the sheer mass of civilians.

They had no choice. They walked on farther.

“Fierfek,” Sev said. “She'll have doubled back or disappeared by the time we can turn around safely.”

Fi was looking straight ahead. He could see splashes of dark red between the multicolored shoulders of the dozens of species strolling around the plaza.

“Here comes the Forty-first,” he said. “You can always rely on the infantry …”

A dozen or so brothers were ambling along, gazing around them and being gazed at by shoppers who had clearly never seen clones before. No matter how many times Fi saw that reaction, he always found himself wondering what they found so strange about it, and then had to see his own world as the rest of the galaxy saw it.