“No, I don’t.” Hokan was never embarrassed to admit ig­norance. That was for small men. “Tell me.”

“Jango Fett.”

“What?”

“Yes. The finest Mandalorian warrior of his day has been used to churn out cannon fodder for the aggrandizement of the Jedi.”

If she had spat in his face, he couldn’t have been more ap­palled. He knew she was aware of what would enrage him; she used the emotional term warrior, not bounty hunter. She knew how much the revelation would offend his cultural pride. But she was right to tell him. It was a matter of honor, and more than his own. He would not see his heritage used in this travesty of honest war.

“I’d take the contract even if you didn’t pay me,” he said.

Uthan seemed to relax. “We can give you up to a hundred droids to start with. Ask if you need more. It’s a small garri­son because we didn’t want to attract attention, but now that we have that attention anyway we can reinforce if necessary. What about your existing militia?”

“I think layoff notices might be in order. Perhaps your troops might start by helping me with the administration of that.”

Uthan blinked for a second, and Hokan realized she had taken longer than usual to understand what he meant. She’d grasped the meaning: I can be as ruthless as you. She’d think twice before undermining him as she was undermining Ankkit.

“That might be a sensible start,” she said.

Hokan stood up and held his helmet in both hands. He had always been proud of that tradition, proud that it hadn’t changed in thousands of years except for a technical en­hancement here and there. What really mattered was what lay under Mandalorian armor—a warrior’s heart.

“Would you like to know what virus we’re developing here, Major Hokan?” Uthan asked.

So he had a real rank now, not the flatteringly extravagant General. “Do I need to?”

“I think so. You see, it’s specifically for the clones.”

“Let me see. To make them proper men again?”

“Nothing can do that. This is to kill them.”

Hokan replaced his helmet carefully.

“The kindest solution,” he said, and meant it.

–Traditional Mandalorian war chant

It would have been much, much easier to fight in a different environment.

Niner decided that when he got back to base he’d ask to amend the training manual on nonurban warfare, to reflect the fact that SOPs for temperate rural terrain were definitely not interchangeable with jungle tactics.

It was the fields. There was too much open ground between areas of cover. Niner had been sitting in the fork of a tree for so long that one buttock was numb and the other was catching up fast. And still the group of militia was sprawled in the grass at the edge of a recently mown field, passing around bottles of urrqal.

Niner didn’t stir under his camouflage of leaves. It was nearly autumn, so it was a trick they wouldn’t be able to rely on much longer, as almost all the woodland was deciduous. They planned to pull out long before then.

“Anything happening, Sarge?” Fi’s voice was a whisper in his helmet, even though the sound wouldn’t carry. It was a smart habit, just in case. If one precaution was good, two was better. “Still swigging?”

“Yeah. We could always wait until they die of liver failure. Save the ammo.”

“You okay?”

“My bladder’s a bit full, but fine otherwise.”

“Atin’s shredding that speedie’s onboard computer.”

“I hope he’s doing it quietly.”

“He’s moved into the wood a bit. He reckons he’s downloaded some high-res charts, but the rest are probably fried. He’s on the encryption files now.”

“As long as he’s happy.”

Fi made a stifled snort of laughter. “Yeah, he’s happy.”

I’ve been Darman. Niner still had no idea what Atin had meant by that. He’d remember to ask him at a more appropriate moment. All he wanted right then was for Hokan’s men to get up and move on so they could cross over to RV Beta, just four klicks ahead. It would have been easy to pick them off from here, but that would leave a nice pile of calling cards and the squad had left too many already. Niner wanted to avoid all the hard contact that he could.

They have to run out of urrqal soon.

And they can’t be taking Ghez Hokan very seriously.

Niner was watching the group through his rifle scope, wondering why there was a preponderance of Weequays, when they all looked up, but not at him. They were looking to his right.

“Five more targets approaching,” Fi said.

Niner tracked right very gently. “Got’em.”

They didn’t look like militia. There was an Umbaran, very smart in a pale gray uniform that matched his skin, and four battle droids marching behind him. Some of the militia boys got to their feet. One of them, reclining on the ground, held his bottle out in offering, muttering something about curing rust.

The only words of conversation that Niner could pick up from the Umbaran were “… Hokan asks… any contact…”

The breeze took the rest. They’ve got reinforcements, he thought. They look like a different problem altogether.

And they were, but not for him this time. The reinforcement droids raised their integral blasters without warning and simply opened fire into the group of militia. They fired a few bolts in an orderly manner and then waited, looking down at their victims as if checking. The Umbaran—commissioned officer or sergeant?—stepped forward and fired another blast at close range into a Weequay. Apparently satisfied that their job was done, they gathered up the group’s assortment of blasters and sidearms, searched the bodies for something—ID, Niner suspected—and marched calmly away, back down their approach route.

Niner heard Fi exhale at the same time he did.

“Well,” Fi said. “You can empty your bladder now, I suppose.”

Niner slid down from the fork of the tree, and his leg buckled under him. He removed the plates and rubbed his thigh to get the circulation going. “What do you reckon that was all about, then?”

“Hokan doesn’t like them drinking on duty?”

Atin appeared, a jumble of circuitry and wires in one hand. “Looks like the tinnies have shown up to take over. But why shoot them?”

“Tinnies?” Fi said.

“What did your squad call them?”

“Droids.”

Niner nudged Fi. “General Zey said Hokan was violent and unpredictable. He executes his own people in cold blood. Let’s remember that.”

They gathered up their gear and this time it was the turn of Atin and Niner to carry the load they’d rigged underslung on a pole. Fi walked ahead on point.

“I haven’t fired a shot yet,” he said.

“On this sort of mission, the fewer the better,” Atin said.

Niner took it as a sign that Atin was joining in. His tone wasn’t as defensive. Regular people said they couldn’t tell the difference between one clone and another, did they? That was what came of spending too much time looking at faces and not enough wondering what shaped people and went on inside their heads.

“Save’em for later,” Niner said. “I think we’re going to need every single round.”

I must be out of my mind.

Etain watched the ramshackle farmhouse buildings through a gap in the barn’s planked walls. The roofs were outlined against the deepening turquoise of the dusk sky: two lamps stood by the porch of the main building to keep the gdans away from the path to the outside refresher. There were so many of the little predators nesting around the farm that one of their warrens had subsided, leaving a gaping hole in the farmyard that was now filling up every time it rained. Birhan wasn’t big on maintenance.