His ankle was agony today.

“Bard'ika, how are you doing?”

Jusik's voice came over the comlink. “We've tracked a target moving to the plaza from the house that Fi and Sev recced. I think that confirms it's Perrive.”

“But he won't come alone.”

“So that means he'll probably have minders nearby that we haven't tagged. New ones.”

“Fine.”

“Vau's on his way,” Jusik said. “They won't recognize him.”

“And you?”

“I'm already there.”

“Fierfek. He knows you. Wait for orders—”

“Trust me, he won't see me at all.”

“Stand down. Get out of there.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. And I'm going off the comlink now, unless I hit real problems.”

He shut the link, exasperated. But it was his own fault. You couldn't delegate that much to a kid and then expect him to read your mind and work out when he was supposed to wait for specific orders again.

And he was a Jedi, after all. He could take care of himself.

Skirata pushed a bead comlink into his ear and brought the speeder down in the public parking area. Enacca said she was fed up collecting abandoned speeders from around the city, and wanted to know why they couldn't bring their vessels and vehicles back with them every time. The logistics of operations like this depended on a lot of grim drudgery. He'd have to sweeten her up somehow when all this was over.

Out in the plaza, by the bench where he had awaited the Separatists the day before, stood Perrive.

He was busy looking like an executive waiting for a colleague: suit, document case, polished shoes. Skirata walked up to the man as briskly as he could with a complaining ankle.

“Okay, what's the deal?” Skirata said. He tried to focus on Perrive and not look over his shoulder for possible threats or—to be precise—Walon Vau. “I can get you the dets in twenty-four hours.”

“Let's discuss this somewhere less crowded.”

Those were often the worst words to hear at times like this. “Where?”

“Follow me.”

Fierfek. He hoped Vau was watching him or Jusik was monitoring the conversation carefully. If Perrive moved too far out of the comlink's limited mike range, he'd have to make stupidly obvious comments to clue them in. Perrive didn't strike him as quite that naive, even if his surveillance team was some way short of professional.

If Vau was here, Skirata couldn't see him.

But that was the point, and Vau was a very skilled operator.

Skirata followed Perrive across the plaza and back to the speeder parking area, a few moments that made him glad that he had a limp. It gave Vau, he hoped, a little more time to work out what was happening. Perrive stood looking around, and a shiny new green speeder with a closed cabin rose from below the level of the parking platform and maneuvered sideways to set down.

Ah well, Skirata thought. I’d have done the same. But Perrives lungs are coated with marker Dust, and Jusik can track this crate all the way.

“Off you go,” Perrive said.

“You're not coming, too?” Oh no, no, no. Why didn't I dose myself with some of that di'kutla Dust? “Forgive me if I get nervous about the quality of your associates' driving.”

“Don't worry. All they'll do is blindfold you. Keep whatever weapons I'm sure you're carrying. I'll see you at our destination.”

Skirata had no choice but to get in. Two human males—both about thirty, one shaven-headed, one with thin blond hair scraped back in a tail, neither of them the hired help they had tagged yesterday—sat in the front seat, and the bald one leaned over to place a black fabric bag over his head in total silence. Skirata folded his arms to feel the comfort of his assorted hardware in his sleeve, holster, and belt.

“Well, this is fun,” he said, hoping for a display of verbal stupidity that might help Jusik locate him.

But neither man responded. He didn't expect them to.

Concentrate on the movement. Work out the direction.

Skirata tried to count the number of times they seemed to swing right or left to get some idea of the route. They were in an automated skylane, so he could count the seconds and try to calculate the distance between turns, but it was a massive task. Ordo, with his faultless memory, would have had the skylane network memorized and calculated the times and distances at the same time. But Skirata was not a Null ARC trooper, just a smart and experienced soldier whose natural intelligence had been sharpened by having to cope with six hyperintelligent small boys.

He had no idea where he was. The speeder continued toward either a nerve-racking deal that would take them a step closer to striking at the heart of this Separatist network, or a lonely death.

Service tunnel beneath skylane 348, 0855 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

“Bard'ika, you'll never need to shave again when Kal catches you,” Fi said.

“You seriously think I'm not going to follow him?” Jusik raced Ordo's Aratech speeder bike along the service tunnel that ran parallel to the skylane serving the southern edge of the plaza. Fi decided that Ordo had no sense of danger if he was happy to ride pillion with the Jedi at speeds approaching five hundred kph. But then the man was nuts anyway. Fi held on to the handgrip behind him for grim death. “Vau, can you still hear me?”

The comlink was breaking up, but audible. “I'm a few vehicles behind Perrive. He's transmitting like a Fleet beacon.”

“Where's he heading?”

“Looks like Quadrant N-Oh-Nine.”

“What's there besides offices and residential?”

“That's about it. Stand by.”

Jusik made an irritated grunt that he seemed to have picked up from Sev and accelerated. At times like this Fi had passed beyond the first flush of adrenaline and into a cold and rational world where everything made sense to his body if not to his brain. He found an instinctive sense of effortless balance as Jusik wove through the ducts, clearing some of the transverse durasteel joists by a breath. Speed no longer felt like conscious fun, as it had in training, but he was beyond fear for himself at that moment.

All he could think of was Sergeant Kal.

“He can take care of himself,” Jusik said. “He's packing more weapons than the Galactic Marines.”

“Are you telepathic?” The thought disturbed Fi, because his mind was the only private retreat he had. “I was just—”

“If you're not as worried for him as I am, then I've read you all wrong, my friend.”

“Bard'ika.”

“Yes? Too fast? Look—”

“Even if you didn't have your Force powers, you'd still be a terrific soldier. And a good man.”

Fi couldn't see the Jedi's expression. For once, Jusik didn't scare the living daylights out of Fi and look back over his shoulder with a silly grin when they were hurtling toward a wall, only to bank sharply at the last moment. Jusik dropped his head for a second and then raised it again. His slipstreamed hair slapped Fi in the face.

“I'll try to live up to that.”

“Yeah, but you still need to get your shabla hair cut.” Jusik didn't laugh. Fi wasn't sure if he was moved or offended. And it seemed impossible to offend Jusik.

“Hang on.”

Whatever element of the Force was guiding the Jedi, it was completely instinctive. He could find Skirata.

The speeder swung hard left and Fi feared for the Verpine rifle under his jacket, its folded stock wedged in his armpit. He was used to wearing the scruffy assortment of dull civilian clothing that Enacca had sent over with Vau. He wondered how he'd cope with his all-encompassing Katarn armor after being out of it for two weeks.

Jusik's head jerked around as if someone had summoned him. “He's heading for business zone six.”