“I think I worked that out already.” She felt the strill brush past her legs, padding impatiently up and down the narrow ledge. It had no fear of heights, it seemed. “But the consequences of pursuing Perrive into that building reach far beyond assassinating a terrorist.”

“We'll have to get him to come out, then.”

“He could lie low there for weeks.”

“If he's hiding, yes.”

“I find you hard to follow sometimes, Vau.”

“He might be collecting something or somebody. He was in a mad rush to leave.”

“I sense he's alone. He isn't picking up a colleague.”

Vau leveled the scope of the Verpine, angled down about thirty degrees. The strill teetered on the edge of the ledge.

“I can see Perrive. Yes, he's alone. He's in front of the doors to the balcony—now that's arrogant, my friend. Think nobody can see you, eh? Etain, want to take a look?”

Vau handed her the Verpine. She took it nervously, hearing Skirata's constant admonition to take care of the weapon, and was surprised how light and harmless it felt. She peered down the scope and felt Vau reach out and flick something on the optic. A different image appeared in the eyepiece, slightly pink-tinted, of a man rummaging through a desk and sticking datachips into his 'pad, activating them, and then extracting and discarding them. A pale blob of light shimmered from his chest and then from his back as he turned.

“What can you see?”

“He's loading data,” Etain said.

“He's shredding someone's files. Told you so.”

“What's the white light? The EM emissions from the Dust?”

“Correct.”

Etain handed back the rifle. “That datapad is going to contain some interesting material. How do we get hold of it?”

“The old-fashioned way.” Vau sounded as if he'd smiled. It was hard to tell under the helmet. “Let's get him to come to the balcony.”

“I'm not sure I can influence his mind at this range … or at all.”

“No need, my dear.” Vau folded a cloth one-handed and placed it under the stock of the Verpine at the point where it touched his armored shoulder. “I hate a standing shot without something to lean against, but I'm not as sure-footed as Mird so I'm not going to attempt to kneel.” He leaned back slightly against the wall at his back. “But this Verpine is beautiful.” He rested his firing hand on his raised forearm. “It's almost a handgun.”

“Just tell me what you're going to do.”

“Make a noise on his balcony so he steps outside.”

“What if he doesn't?”

“Then we'll have to go in and get him the hard way.”

“But if you—”

“Let's get him outside if we can.” Vau paused to let an air-speeder pass. The narrow skylane was almost deserted. “Most armies I ended up serving had no notion of advance planning. I got to be very good at unorthodox solutions.”

Etain couldn't help but feel the patterns in the Force right then. Being pregnant seemed to have enhanced her sensitivity to the living Force by an order of magnitude. Vau felt like a pool of utter cold calm, almost a Jedi Master's footprint in the Force. The strill felt … alien. It had an unfathomable glittering intelligence and a wild, joyful heart swirling within it. Had it not been for Vau's rifle and the krill's savage teeth, the pair might have felt like a peaceful man and his happy child.

She felt something else, as she did constantly now: the vivid, complex pattern of her unborn child.

It's a boy.

I'm standing on a ledge with thousands of meters of nothing below me. And I am not afraid.

She stopped herself from reaching out to Darman in the Force. It might distract him at a critical moment. She simply felt that he was safe and confident, and that was enough.

“Could you choke him using the Force?” Vau said quietly.

“What?”

“Just asking. Very handy.”

“I was never trained to do that.”

“Pity. All those fine combat skills wasted.”

Vau exhaled audibly and paused. There was the slightest of movements in her peripheral vision as he squeezed the trigger, and a small snakkk echoed as a puff of vaporized stone billowed briefly off the corner of the apartment wall.

“Ahh … ,” Vau said. The rifle's scope was still pressed to the eye slit in his black helmet. He looked like the very image of death. Much as Etain had grown to find that armor reassuring, it made it no less intimidating. “Now, this is not a man used to avoiding professional assassins. Watch carefully and tell me what you feel.”

Perrive paused at the transparisteel doors leading onto the balcony and shoved the datapad inside his tunic. Then he took out his blaster. He opened the doors by a meter, no more, and stood looking around, blaster raised, one foot still inside the apartment, one on the balcony itself.

Etain heard Vau exhale and then Perrive's head jerked backward with a brief plume of dark blood as if he had been punched by an invisible fist. He fell, arms thrown wide.

Dead. Gone. Whatever had been Perrive was now gone from the Force: no pain, no surprise, and suddenly not there.

Mird the strill was staring up at its master, unblinking, tail thrashing the ledge in enthusiasm. It began making little whimpering noises deep in its throat.

“I must treat myself to one of these,” Vau said, still all complete calm and satisfaction, gazing at the Verpine rifle. “Outstanding craftspeople, those little insectoids.”

“He's dead.”

“I should think so. The hydrostatic shock generated by a Verpine projectile is substantial. A clean head shot is instantaneous kyr'am.”

“But the datapad is still in his tunic.”

“Good!” He turned to the strill and put his finger to his lips. “Udesii, Mird … silence! K'uur!”

The strill stared up into his face, gold eyes fixed on his, head drawn back a little into its cowl-like folds of loose skin. Its whimpering stopped abruptly. Vau crouched down and held out his arm as if pointing, and closed his fingers into a fist. “Oya … ,” he whispered. “Find the aruetii! Find the traitor!”

Mird spun around and stabbed its claws into the stonework. Etain watched, stunned, as it climbed the wall and made its way to the next ledge above. The strill appeared to understand what was said to it, even hand signals. But she had no idea what it was doing.

“Oya, Mird!”

The strill balanced on its four rear legs and then sprang into the abyss.

“Oh my—”

And then Etain suddenly realized why the strill looked so bizarre. It spread all six legs, and the loose, ugly skin that made it appear such a shambling mess was stretched taut by the air pressure beneath it. It glided effortlessly down in a perfect stoop onto the balcony opposite.

Vau took off his helmet and wiped his brow. His face was a study in complete admiration and … yes, love.

“Clever Mird,” he murmured. “Clever baby!”

“It's a glider!”

“Extraordinary animals, strills.”

“It's going to fetch the datapad?”

Vau paused. Etain could see a smile forming on his lips. “Yes.”

“Is it male or female?”

“Both,” Vau said. “Mird has been with me since I joined the Mandalorians. Strills live far longer than humans. Who'll care for it when I'm dead?”

“I'm sure someone will value it greatly.”

“I want it to be cared for, not valued.”

Vau replaced his helmet. They waited. Etain strained to see when the animal emerged from the apartment with, she imagined, the datapad clamped in its teeth. Or maybe it had more surprises in store, like a pouch, as Jinart the Gurlanin had.

She stared, aghast.

Mird had dragged Perrive's body out onto the balcony and was worrying at it. She believed the animal was trying to tear out the datapad right up to the moment that it got a good grip with its massive jaws on the corpse's shoulder and hauled it up onto the safety rail.