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 hug. “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.