They drank and joked and argued about Hutt curses. And then Skirata's comlink chirped, and he answered it discreetly, head lowered. Ordo simply heard him say, “Now? Are you serious?”

“What is it?” Ordo said. Mereel paused in midcurse, too, and the table fell silent.

“It's our customer,” Skirata said, jaw tense again. “They've hit a small snag. They need to move tonight. There's no preparation, ad'ike—we have to roll in three hours.”

You know that thing that sergeants are always supposed to yell at new recruits? “I am your mother! I am your father!” Well, what do you do when that's actually true? Kal Skirata was all they had. And the troopers didn't have anyone. How can you expect those boys to grow up normal?

–Captain Jailer Obrim, to his wife over dinner

Operational house, Qibbu'sHut, 1935 hours, 385 days after Geonosis: whole strike team ready todeploy

“So what's your shabla problem, then, Perrive?” Skirata conducted the conversation with his wrist comlink propped on the table while he strapped on his Mando armor. Ordo stood out of range of the comlink's mike, holding Obrim on the line via his own link. “Cold feet? Can't get the finance in place? What, exactly?”

Skirata didn't need to act angry. He was. Everyone in the team was used to working on the fly, but all the planning—the careful positioning to take out the maximum number of bodies—now teetered on the brink of disaster. Around him, Delta and Omega were armoring up in full fighting order: Katarn rig with DC-17s, grenades, rappelling lines, rapid entry ordnance, and a Plex rocket launcher per squad.

For a moment he was unsettled to see Omega and Vau both in black armor. But they're mine. They're my squad. He renewed his concentration on Perrive's voice.

“One of our colleagues has been picked up by the police.” Perrive's Jabiimi accent was very noticeable now. It was an indication of stress. And that was encouraging at an animal level for a mercenary. Skirata gestured frantically to Ordo but his head was already lowered, chin tucked into his chest as he relayed the information to Obrim. “We need to move our operation.”

“And you want me to drop by with the groceries when you've got CSF crawling all over you? I'm still wanted for seven contract killings in town.”

Ordo gave a standing by signal: hand at shoulder level, fingers spread.

Perrive swallowed audibly. “They're not crawling all over us, as you put it. One man was arrested. He might be a weak link.”

Cross-check this with Obrim. “Where? This better not be in my backyard.”

“Industrial sector, pulled over for an illegal cannon upgrade to his speeder.”

Ordo nodded once and then gave a thumbs-up. Confirmed. Skirata felt his shoulders relax immediately. “Call me suspicious, but last time somebody did this to me they didn't plan on paying. You're not sticking to our timetable.”

“I'm afraid it's just a good old-fashioned screwup.”

“I'll be at your location at twenty-two-hundred hours, then. But you won't mind if I bring a couple of my colleagues just to be on the safe side.”

“Not there. We have transport issues.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean we need to move our vessels somewhere safe. Bring the consignment to us at our landing strip and load it straight on.”

Scorch stepped in front of Skirata with as near to an expression of boyish delight as the man was ever going to manage. He mouthed CoruFresh at him. Any good mercenary could lip-read, because if he wasn't already deafened by long exposure to gunfire, he couldn't hear a word in battle anyway.

“I need a location.”

“We have a few vessels laid up in the commercial sector in Quadrant F-Seventy-six.”

Skirata watched Scorch clench both fists and pull his elbows hard into his sides in a gesture of silent, total triumph. They were heading for at least one site at which they'd done a thorough recce.

“I need coordinates and I need to know exactly what I can expect to see when I show up—so I know I'm not walking into a CSF welcoming committee.”

“You really do have a record, don't you?” said Perrive.

“Isn't that why you're doing business with me?”

“Very well. Six speeder trucks with CoruFresh livery and four passenger airspeeders—two Koros, two custom J-twelves.”

“For a hundred kilos of thermal? I can carry that with my nephew in two shopping bags, chakaar”

“You're not our only supplier of equipment, Mando. And I have personnel to move. I know you'll spit on this, but we're soldiers, and we have a code of honor. We want the goods for the price we agreed. No trap.”

Skirata paused for effect. “So I'll meet you there.”

“No, it'll be my deputy. The woman you saw at our meeting earlier. I'm moving via another route.”

“Transmit the coordinates now and we'll start packing our bags.”

“Your credits will be in the account you specified at twenty-one-fifty.”

“Pleasure doing business. But the minute I see CSF-issue blasters or even a hint of blue uniform, we're banging out.”

Skirata closed the link and for a moment there was absolute silence in a room full of fifteen hot, anxious, adrenaline-laden bodies. Then there was a loud collective whoop of satisfaction. Even Etain joined in, and Skirata hadn't reckoned her for wild displays of enthusiasm.

“So all was not lost after all, vode,” Vau said. Lord Mirdalan was frantic, bouncing on its front legs while the other four scrabbled for purchase on the tattered carpet. Adrenaline excited strills and made them eager to hunt. “Plan B. Disable the vessels and slot the occupants.”

“Disable … ,” Scorch said.

“Minimum force required to do the job. We're in a city, remember.”

“Holochart,” Ordo said. “I've still got Obrim on this link. Quick sitrep, people.”

They clustered around Corr, who was collating the moving red lines and points of light with quiet enthusiasm. Methodical, calm lad. He'd need to be that in bomb disposal. “They've been going all shades of crazy here and here.” He zoomed into the holoimage and indicated two tangled masses of red lines like loose balls of thread, both in the retail sector of Quadrant B-85, where Fi had carried out the surveillance of Vinna Jiss. It suggested that tagged suspects had done an awful lot of repeated movement. “I'd say they're shifting kit by hand. Plenty of it, in two locations. But the two apartments Captain Ordo recce'd have been totally dead for hours. They've left.”

Skirata knew what he'd do in their position. He'd assemble what kit he had, move it discreetly to a central point, and then ship out. He wouldn't send a big, conspicuous repulsor truck to pick up from a dozen locations.

“It's all going out via the crates on that landing strip,” he said.

“Agreed.” Ordo and Mereel nodded.

Scorch just grinned.

A red point of light suddenly moved from the location of the house in the banking sector where Skirata had met Perrive. They watched it moving fast: someone had left the house in a speeder. “Holocam,” Skirata said.

Ordo played out the remote image from his glove emitter. A speeder had taken off from the roof.

“I'd bet that was Perrive leaving,” said Vau.

Skirata knew they'd lose some of the key players, but this was about making as big a dent in the Sep terror ranks as possible. “Pity. Maybe we can catch up with him later.”

Fi held out his palm with a remote detonator on it. “If he's flying that green speeder.”

“The one they took me in?”

“Yes.”

“Fi …”

“You can blow it anytime you like, Sarge.” The commandos had slipped back into calling him Sarge. It seemed to happen when they put their armor on again. “I stuck a nice big surprise in his air intake last night.”