“You got it.”

“Delta has recce'd the landing strip. You've reece'd the house in the banking sector. That just leaves the two apartments, and Ordo and Mereel have stopped off to recce those now.”

The strill had finished its milk, most of which had ended up on the carpet. Vau—a sergeant who believed in thrashing courage into his men, a sergeant who had scarred Atin badly—grabbed a cloth from the kitchen area and mopped up the damp patches. Then he took a clean rag, soaked it, and wiped the strill's mouth and jowls as if it were a baby. The animal accepted the indignity and rumbled with happiness.

Fi wasn't sure he would ever know what went on in the heads of nonclones.

Delta and Omega assembled in the main room, finding seats where they could, and spent the next hour planning three house assaults and a raid on an airstrip. They were basic maneuvers they had drilled for time and again on Kamino; they'd done it for real more than once, too. They had fairly recent plans of the buildings—not to be relied upon absolutely, of course—and covert holocam surveillance. Apart from the fact that the squads were used to operating alone, it was as near a done deal as an operation could be.

Planning. It was all about planning.

But there was always a surprise, always one more factor you hadn't allowed for or didn't see.

Fi planned for that, too. They all did, deep down.

Operational house, Qibbu's Hut, 1530 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

Etain knew.

She had known it would happen in time, but it had happened now, in two brief, wonderful weeks. The Force landscape that surrounded her had changed subtly and she felt strangeness and purpose within her, purpose that was someone else's.

It was said that Force-sensitive females could often detect the moment that they conceived. And it was true.

Etain stood on the landing platform for a while, searching for the fear she always imagined might come with taking that irrevocable step and not knowing its full consequences. But there was no fear. There was simply a pleasant sensation of certainty, almost like hands pressing on her shoulders.

And a clear vision, in the part of her brain that saw the universe without images, showed a new path through trails of webbed, colored light. In her prosaic way, it reminded her of a holochart, but it was less solid, its threads and lines shifting.

The new path that was marked through the tangle of colored threads was pale, silver, and thick, and from it sprouted silver tendrils that snaked into the tangles of the rest of the image. This new life she carried would be significant, and it would touch many others. The Force was clear if you listened carefully to it: and this time it said This is not wrong.

On Qiilura, I envied Jinart her certainty. I envied Master Fuller that quality, too. And now I have it at last.

It was almost blissful. She savored the warm sun on her face, eyes closed for a few moments, and then walked back into the main room. It seemed oddly empty: Delta and Omega were catching up on sleep, doors shut. Ordo had disappeared with Mereel, and Corr had left a datapad running to log movements of suspects on the holochart while he went for a meal.

Vau stretched out in one chair with the strill on his lap while Skirata sat opposite him, boots up on the low table, eyes closed, hands clasped on his chest. Etain watched him, knowing that she might need to tell him even before she told Darman: she would need Skirata's help, his list of contacts and places to disappear.

Darman would be overwhelmed by it all when he needed to keep his mind on fighting. But Skirata was a man of the world, never fazed by anything; he would understand what she was giving Darman, and want to help.

Not yet, though.

While she watched Skirata, Niner wandered out of his room in his red fatigues, scratching his head with both hands. He poured a glass of water and walked across the room in slow silence to stand contemplating the sleeping Skirata with a slight frown. Then he went back to his room. He emerged a few moments later with a blanket and eased it over his sergeant, tucking it around him carefully. For once the man didn't stir.

Niner stood over him for a while, simply looking down at his face, lost in thought.

“He's okay,” Etain whispered.

“Just checking,” Niner said quietly, and returned to his room.

Etain defocused for a few moments and sought Darman in the Force: as ever, he was a well of calm and certainty, even while sleeping. When she focused on the room again, she realized Skirata had opened his eyes.

“You okay, ad'ika?” he said. “Was that Niner just now?”

“I'm fine.” He was in a better mood now. Perhaps he regarded the matter between her and Ordo as closed. “Yes. He was checking on you.”

“He's a good lad. But he ought to be getting some sleep.” He raked his hair with his fingers, yawning. “Fatigue affects your judgment.”

“But not yours,” Vau said quietly.

Skirata was alert in a heartbeat and swung his legs off the table onto the floor. Vau could wind him up as surely as a mechanical toy. “If I don't move fast enough when the shooting starts, that's my problem. I'm used to it.”

“Yes, we all know.” Vau turned to Etain. “This is normally where he starts lecturing me on his ghastly childhood as a starving war orphan living feral on some bomb site, and how I just ran away to become a mercenary because I was bored with my idle, rich family.”

“Well, that saved me some time,” Skirata said irritably. “What he said.”

“You have a family, Vau?” Etain was suddenly mesmerized by people who had lives and parents. “Are you in contact with them?”

“No. They cut me off when I declined to choose the career they wanted for me.”

“Wife? Children?”

“Dear girl, we're Cuy'val Dar. People who have to disappear for eight years or more aren't the family kind. Except Kal, of course. But your family didn't wait for you, did they? That's all right, though. You've got a lot more sons now.”

If Etain had known nothing of Skirata, or even Vau, it was the kind of jibe guaranteed to start a fight. Skirata was absolutely and instantly white with anger. One thing she knew about Mandalorians was that clan was a matter of honor. Skirata walked up to Vau very slowly and the strill woke, whining.

Etain checked that Skirata's jacket with its lethal array of blades was still hanging over the back of the chair.

Skirata shook his head, slow and deliberate. Vau was much taller and a few kilos heavier but Skirata never seemed to worry about that kind of detail.

“But that's the good thing about being Mando. If you don't get the family you want, you can go and choose one yourself.” He looked suddenly older and very sad, small, crushed by time. “You going to tell her? Okay, Etain, my sons disowned me. In Mandalorian law, children can legally disown a parent who's shamed them, but it's rare. My sons left with their mother when we split up, and when I disappeared to Kamino and they couldn't locate me, they declared me dar'buir. No longer a father.”

“Oh my. Oh, I'm sorry.” Etain knew how serious that would be for a Mando'ad. “You found that out when you left Kamino?”

“No. Jango brought the news back that they were looking for me about … oh, four years in? Three maybe? I forget. Two sons and a daughter. Tor, Ijaat, and Ruusaan.”

“Why were they looking for you?”

“My ex-wife died. They wanted me to know.”

“Oh …”

“Yeah.”

“But you could have told them where you were at the time. Jango could have talked to them.”

“And?”

“You could have made your peace with them.”