She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes screwed shut, and wondered what had happened to her, what Master Fulier would have thought had he been alive. Then she was aware of someone watching her.

She looked up. Darman, perched in the same fork of branches as Niner had been, stared down.

“It’s hard to send someone to their death,” she said, an­swering his silent question.

His expression was hidden behind the visor of his helmet. She didn’t need to call on any of her abilities as a Jedi to know what he was thinking: one day she would do the same to men like him. The realization caught her unawares.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said.

She doubted it.

There is nothing wrong with fear. You need never be ashamed of it, as long as it doesn’t stop you functioning. Fear is your natural warning system; it keeps you alive so that you can fight. Show me a man who isn’t afraid, and I’ll show you a fool who is a danger to his entire ship. And I do not tolerate fools in my navy.

–Admiral Adar Tallon, addressing the new intake at a Republic academy

Hokan stood on the veranda of Ankkit’s villa and stared out at a bright autumnal morning. There were still too many leaves on the trees for his liking.

They were out there somewhere. Republic forces. A hand­ful.

But they were not an army.

He walked to Uthan’s laboratory complex, a comfortable fifteen-minute stroll. It occurred to him that he was a good target for a sniper, if a sniper had been able to penetrate Mandalorian armor. Even so, he decided to divert via a cop­pice. His path took him along a dry-stone wall to the rear of the installation, and he made a complete circle of the farm building before walking up to the single entrance at the front.

As a lure, this was a good one. The line of droids across the entrance was spectacular. Hokan made a point of inspecting them at a leisurely pace and then engaged them in conversa­tion about their cannons. If anyone was observing—soldier, spy, or talkative farmer—they would get the message.

Inside, though, Dr. Uthan was losing her glamorous cool.

“Is this the last time you’re going to move me?” she said, tapping her nails against the polished metal of her desk. Her files and equipment were still in packing crates. “My staff members are finding this extremely stressful, as am I.”

Hokan took out his datapad and projected a holochart of the installation above the surface of the desk. The place was a cube within a cube: below ground level, the accommoda­tions, storage, and offices lay in a ring around a central core. The core contained a square of eight small laboratories with one more—the secure room—nestled in the center. The rest of the complex had bulkheads that could be brought down and sealed to isolate a biohazard escape. It could be de­fended.

But it wouldn’t come to that. He’d laid a careful trail to Ankkit’s villa and a greeting from fifty droids, along with cannons and powerful explosives.

He wanted to get it over with.

“Yes, Doctor, this is the last time I’ll move you,” he said. “Try to understand why I’ve done this, Doctor. I believe I’m facing a small commando force. Rather than chase them, which could be diversionary, I’ve decided to bring them to me. This means they’ll be facing a conventional infantry and artillery battle that I don’t think they’re equipped to fight. Those are battles of numbers.”

“I’m not sure if I do see your point, actually.”

“We can defend this installation. I have the numbers and the firepower. Sooner or later, they’ll take casualties.”

“You’re certain about this?”

“Not certain, but everything I see suggests they have landed a minimal amount of troops—for example, no evi­dence of large-scale transport. They hijacked explosives from a quarry to destroy the Teklet ground station. If they had the materiel, they wouldn’t have bothered.”

“And then again, maybe that’s a diversionary tactic, too.”

Hokan looked up from the holochart. “Nobody has per­fect knowledge in battle. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Yes, I’m making an educated guess, as every com­mander in history has had to do.”

Uthan considered him with cold black eyes. “You should have evacuated my project from the planet.”

Hokan folded his arms. “When you move, you’re vulnera­ble. You’re vulnerable crossing the countryside between here and the spaceport. You’re even more vulnerable attempting to leave Qiilura with a Republic assault ship on station. And now we have no communications beyond runners, and a bunch of droids relaying messages. No, we sit tight.”

Uthan indicated the warren of rooms behind her with one hand. “If this comes to a pitched battle, what about my proj­ect? What about my staff? Those five scientists represent the best microbiologists and geneticists in the CIS. In many ways, they’re more important than the biomaterial we hold. We can start again, even if the work so far is lost.”

“It’s as dangerous for them to leave as it is for you.”

“I see.”

“You specified a very secure layout when you had this fa­cility built. You must know it’s defensible.”

Uthan seemed suddenly fixed on the holochart in front of her. It showed hydraulic emergency bulkheads and chambers within chambers. It showed ventilation systems with triple filters. It could be sealed as tightly as a bottle.

“It’s not secure enough to stop anything getting in,” she said carefully. “It’s to stop anything getting out.”

“You said the nanovirus was only lethal for clone troops.”

There was a pause, the sort of pause Hokan didn’t like. He waited. He stared at her, and he was disappointed to see for the first time that she was nervous. He waited for her to con­tinue. He would wait all day if necessary.

“It will be,” she said at last.

“You said that it might make other organisms merely—what was the word—unwell?”

“Yes.”

“How unwell, then, if you go to all this trouble to contain it?”

“Very unwell.”

“Dead unwell?”

“Possibly. Depending on whether the exposed subject has certain sets of genes …”

Hokan experienced a rare moment of uncertainty. It wasn’t because he was closer to a dangerous virus than he sup­posed. It was because someone had lied to him, and his in­stinctive way to deal with that was a violent one. The fact that he was dealing with a woman was the only thing that made him hesitate.

But it was only hesitation. He leaned forward, seized her by her elegant designer collar, and heaved her sharply out of her seat across the desk.

“Never lie to me,” he said.

They were eye-to-eye. She was shaking, but she didn’t blink. “Get your hands off me.”

“What else haven’t you told me?”

“Nothing. You didn’t need to know the details of the proj­ect.”

“This is your final chance to tell me if there’s anything else I should know.”

She shook her head. “No, there isn’t. We’re having some problems isolating the parts of the virus that will attack only clones. They’re human. All human races share the majority of genes. Even you.”

He held her for a few more seconds and then let go, and she fell back into her chair. He really should have shot her. He knew it. It would have made her staff more compliant. But she was a significant part of the asset. He hadn’t gone soft because she was a woman, he was certain of that.

“Understand this,” he said, feeling suddenly very uncom­fortable. “This means we’re sitting on a weapon that might destroy us as easily as it will destroy the enemy. It places constraints on how we fight.” He went back to the holochart and indicated various features of the installation with his forefinger. “You’re sure it can’t escape into the environ­ment?”