Hokan wasn’t expecting a display of heroics, and he didn’t get one. “It’s very good of you to allow me to billet my troops here,” he said. “A noble use of all that wasted space. The Separatists are grateful for the personal sacrifice you’ve made to ensure the security of Doctor Uthan’s project.”

Ankkit walked down the steps as fast as his towering headdress and long robe would allow. Even by Neimoidian standards of anxiety, he looked terribly upset. He shook. He stood almost a head taller than Hokan even without the headdress, which was rustling as if some creature had landed in it and was struggling to escape. “I have a contract with Doctor Uthan and her government.”

“And you failed to honor the clause that guaranteed adequate resourcing for security. Doctor Uthan’s notice of penalty should be on its way to your office.”

“I do not take kindly to betrayal.”

“That’s no way to address a commissioned officer of the Separatist forces.”

“An officer!”

“Field commission.” Hokan smiled because he was genuinely happy. “I have no need of you now, Ankkit. Just be grateful you’re alive. By the way, Doctor Uthan’s government has paid a bonus directly to the Trade Federation to ensure I’m allowed to work unhindered. Enemy troops have landed, and this region is now under martial law.”

Ankkit’s slit of a mouth was clamped tight in anger. At least he wasn’t pleading for his life. Hokan would have had to kill him if he had begged. He couldn’t bear whining.

“And I suppose that means you, Hokan,” Ankkit said.

“Major Hokan, please. If you see any of my former employees wandering around, don’t shelter them, will you? Some of them have failed to show up to collect their severance payment. I’d like to handle their outplacement package personally.”

“You’re the paradigm of efficient management for us all,” Ankkit said.

Hokan enjoyed the moment of revenge, then put it aside as the distracting bauble that it was. Ankkit was no threat now; you couldn’t bribe droids. The Umbaran and Aqualish officers now knew what happened to negligent soldiers because they’d carried out his execution orders. Hokan was careful to ensure that everyone was clear on what happened if they left his employment under a cloud.

“And where do I live?” Ankkit asked.

“Oh, plenty of room here,” Hokan replied. There was a loud crash, followed by the tinkle of fragile glass hitting a hard floor. Droids could be so careless. “I’m sure you won’t get in their way.”

He touched his fingers to his helmet and strode off.

There were still a few of his former troops missing. One was his Weequay lieutenant Guta-Nay. He wanted to locate him very badly, as he needed to demonstrate to the new officers that he would happily do his own disciplinary work. It was an image he wanted planted in their heads should Ankkit ever attempt to bribe them.

He walked down the path to the waiting speeder bike. A farmer had found scraps of circuitry on his land and wanted to know if it was worth a bottle of urrqal to reveal the location.

Hokan set off to visit him personally, to show that the information was worth more than that. It was worth a farmer’s life.

RV point Beta should have been a coppice at the top of a shallow escarpment west of Imbraani. When Niner got within visual range of it, there were no trees to be found.

“Coordinates are right, or else this visor is up the creek,” Atin said, tilting his head one way, then the other. “No, position’s accurate. Confirm no trees, though. Shall I deploy a remote to recce?”

“No,” Niner said. “Let’s save them for ordnance. Too conspicuous out here. We’ll have to lay up as close as we can and rely on eyeballing Darman if he shows. Where’s the nearest cover?”

“About one klick east.”

“That’ll have to do.”

Atin looped back, keeping within the trees and retracing their steps to ensure they weren’t being tracked. His armor was now caked with moss, and Niner was glad he wasn’t downwind of him. Whatever he’d crawled through smelled authentically rural. Fi and Niner tabbed on, carrying the extra gear between them, an assortment of entry equipment including three dynamic hammers, a hydraulic ram, and a ratchet attachment for the really difficult doors. They had transferred all the explosive ordnance to their backpacks. If they made hard contact and had to drop the load and hurry out, Niner didn’t fancy being left with a hydraulic ram and ration packs for self-defense. A pile of grenades was far more useful.

“Logging,” Fi said quietly.

“What?”

“The missing coppice. It’s coming up on autumn. They’ve been out cutting trees for winter since the recce was done.”

“That’s the problem with intel,” Niner said. “Goes stale really fast.”

“Not like exercises.”

“No. It’s not. This is going to be invaluable for training updates when we get back.”

Fi sounded as if he had sighed. That was the funny thing about helmet comlinks. One got used to listening to every nuance of breath and tone and even the different ways his brothers swallowed. They couldn’t see each other’s facial expressions, and had to listen for them. It was probably like being blind. Niner had never known any blind people, but he had heard of a batch of clones whose eyesight wasn’t 20/20 disappearing after their first exercise. Kaminoans were obsessive about quality control.

He might have been bred for selfless obedience, but he wasn’t stupid. The Kaminoan technicians were the only things that truly terrified him, and what he felt when he obeyed their instructions was different than the feelings he had when a Jedi gave him orders. He wondered if Fi and Atin felt the same way.

“You don’t think we’re going to make it, do you, Fi?”

“I’m not afraid to die. Not in combat, anyway.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“It’s just…”

“Ten-meter range, son. No Kaminoans listening.”

“It’s just so inefficient. You said it yourself. You said it was a waste.”

“That was Geonosis.”

“They spend so much time and trouble making us perfect and then they don’t give us what we need to do the job. You remember what Sergeant Kal used to say?”

“He used to swear a lot, I remember that.”

“No, he used to get upset when he’d had a few drinks and say that he could make us better soldiers if we had time to go out and live. Data-rich, experience-poor. That’s what he used to say.”

“He used to slur the words quite a bit, too. And he didn’t like clones.”

“That was all bluster. And you know it.”

Yes, Kal Skirata said awful things about clones, but it never sounded as if he meant them, not to the clones, anyway. He got uj cake from home, no easy feat on secret, sealed Kamino, and shared it with the commando squads he was responsible for training. He called them his Dead Men, his Wet Droids, all kinds of abusive things. But if you caught him off duty in his cabin, he would sometimes fight back tears and make you eat some delicacy smuggled in for him, or encourage you to read one of his illicit texts that wasn’t on the accelerated training curriculum. They were often stories of soldiers who could have done many other things, but chose to fight. Sergeant Kal was especially eager for his Wet Droids to read stuff about a culture called Mandalorian. He admired Jango Fett. “This is who you really are,” he’d say. “Be proud, however much these ugly gray freaks treat you like cattle.”

No, he didn’t like Kaminoans much, did Kal Skirata.

Once he signed up with the Kaminoans, he said, they never let him go home again. But he’d told Niner that he didn’t want to. He couldn’t leave his boys now, not since he knew. “Brief,” he’d say, gesturing with a glass of colorless alcohol, “is never glorious.”

Niner was determined to work out what Kal Skirata had come to understand, and why it upset him so much.