“Are there Jedi working here?”

“Of course. Jedi make great clerks.”

“I'll take that as a no.”

“It's a definite no. Why do you ask?”

“I felt someone in the Force, very faintly.”

Fierfek. Zey? Jusik being helpful? “Close?”

“Gone now.”

She went back to silent contemplation of something beyond him.

“Is your PEP laser fully charged?”

“Yes, Ordo.”

“Very noisy and visible. Last resort.”

“As is a Verpine round.”

“I have the chamber loaded two and one,” Ordo said.

“What?”

“Two marker projectiles between each live round, and one live round already up the spout, as Kal'buir so aptly puts it.”

“And you can—”

“Count? I do believe so.”

“I seem to offend you without meaning to. I realize you have an astonishing intellect.”

It wasn't that his mind was so remarkable that seemed worth comment, but that hers and others' were not. He felt the need to explain.

“In an emergency, it's better that I'm able to fire a killing shot without needing to discharge two nonlethal rounds first.” He stared into her eyes: they were light green, flecked with amber. Except for Skirata's, the only eyes so unlike his own that he had ever studied at that range were alien, and shortly before he killed their owner. “Anyway, I can execute a triple tap with a Verpine. So it's academic.”

“Triple tap? I've heard Dar talk about double—”

“Three rounds in quick succession. Some species need a little more stopping power.”

“Oh.”

“The PEP laser will stun most humanoids.”

“And if it doesn't?”

Ordo simply tapped the Verpine under his jacket.

They waited. Maybe they really did look like a couple having a private moment. Randomly created people did strange things.

Staff in groups, ones, and twos began entering the building for the night shift.

Soon …

Movement behind the transparisteel doors made him focus and check his chrono: 1155. Staff sloping off early. “Stand by,” he said quietly.

Etain turned very slowly away from him in her seat, ready to open the speeder's hatch and slide out.

Ten or eleven workers emerged. Ordo and Etain slipped from the speeder and feigned ambling around in conversation. There was still frequent pedestrian traffic around the center.

By 0005 the trickle of staff in and out had slowed, and there was still no sign of Vinna Jiss.

“She has to come out that entrance.”

“You're sure—oh, okay, Ordo.”

They waited. He wondered how long the two of them would look inconspicuous.

And then he spotted the ginger wavy hair and the beige tunic he'd seen earlier. Jiss. He watched her turn along the path and walk down the ramp toward the walkways that connected the complex to the business district around it; then he made his move.

Etain walked briskly at his side and grabbed his hand. “For goodness' sake, Ordo, try to look like a couple.”

Ordo didn't much like that, but the mission came first.

They kept twenty meters behind Jiss, hampered by the lack of crowds of office workers to hide among at this time of night. Maybe they should have waited until daylight. But nobody knew how much time they might have to act. It was a case of now.

Etain did that side-to-side head movement as if she was straining to hear something. “Okay … people behind us, but they seem to have their minds on matters other than us …”

“How do you know that?”

“No feeling of focus on me, or you.”

“Handy,” Ordo said, but he hitched back his jacket and hooked his thumb in his belt to be ready to grab the Verp.

They had followed Jiss for about half a klick along the shrub-lined office walkways when the few pedestrians became none and they had no cover between her and them. Jiss turned right into a side alley and Ordo picked up speed, drawing his weapon and holding it as discreetly as he could against his chest.

“Where's she gone?”

“The alley,” Ordo hissed. “Are you blind?”

“No, I mean she's gone. Gone. I can't feel anybody there.”

Ordo cocked the Verp and checked the status indicator. He might need that live round after all. He slowed at the corner and froze for a second before stepping into the opening with the gun raised, two-handed.

He was looking at a man's back about fifty meters ahead. No sign of Jiss. Maybe that really is a Clawdite.

“Oh my … ,” Etain said.

Ordo was about to discharge the lethal round into the containers of shrubbery and try for a tag pellet but the man appeared to crouch into a low run. There was a reflection, a split-second gleam that said metal, alloy—weapon.

He fired instinctively.

The silent shot hit something with a wet sssputt and whoever or whatever he had hit rolled, stumbled, and raced off to the left down another passage. Ordo broke into a sprint, Etain pounding after him. He reached the point of impact and saw fluid—dark, oily—before discharging both tag pellets into the shrubs and lining up the next lethal round. This had gone wrong. He had got it wrong. But he couldn't turn back now: this had to be resolved. He swung left and there was someone lying on the paving, writhing, and he aimed the Verpine.

“Check!” Etain yelled. “Check!”

And in the fraction of a second that he froze on the safety command she had heard Skirata use, a shock wave of air and heat flared past him and hit the figure on the ground in a blinding, deafening flash. Without his visor he was stunned for a second, too. But he dropped on the body, holding the Verp clear, and grabbed an arm.

Its limb melted away in his grip.

That second became endless, a layered image.

I'm going to throttle that Jedi.

What the fierfek have I grabbed?

It's a Clawdite.

He looked up at Etain but she raised her blaster again and spun around. There was a second deafening, blinding crack of a PEP laser discharging.

Ordo had a tight grip of something very heavy and black and sleekly furred that had stopped moving. And that was an odd thing for a wounded Clawdite—a humanoid when not shapeshifting—to become.

A few meters from Etain, a human female lay crumpled on the paving, gasping for breath. It was Supervisor Wennen, not Jiss. Ordo defaulted to training and opened his comlink.

“Bard'ika? We need extraction urgently. Two prisoners, both injured. Now!”

His instinct told him to find some cover fast. The PEP laser would bring someone running before long. He dragged whatever creature he had shot into an alcove and motioned furiously at Etain to do the same with Wennen. It was amazing how heavy a weight a little Jedi could haul.

But he wanted to hit her, and hard.

“You di'kut,” he hissed. “I could have been killed. Never use that command. Do you hear me? Never! If you try that again, I'll shoot you.”

Etain's wide-eyed stare was either fury or shock. He didn't care.

“I thought you were going to finish it off!” She knelt over the black creature at his side and put her hands on it. “It's alive. I have to keep it alive. You shouldn't have fired.”

“That's my call to make.”

“You shot a Gurlanin—”

There aren't any Gurlanins currently on Coruscant, so Zey says. “Spare me your hindsight lecture.” Gurlanin. Shape-shifter. Qiiluran. Spy. Never seen one before. “Jusik, can you hear me? Can Vau handle shapeshifter first aid?”

Jusik's voice was breathless. “With you in ten minutes, Ordo, hang on. Where's your speeder?”

“Not here. Just move it, please.”

Etain had her fingers spread on the creature's black coat, her eyes shut tight. “I can use the Force to control the bleeding.”

“Okay, you do that, Jedi.” He squatted over Wennen and checked her breathing with the Verp held to her head. “So, Supervisor, why were you following us?”