When they reached the coppice, it was painkiller time. Niner stripped off his arm plate and peeled back a section of suit. He didn’t bother finding a vein. He stabbed the needle into muscle.

“Know the feeling,” Darman said. He dropped his pack and sat down, legs outstretched. “Anyone taken any stims so far?”

“Not yet,” Niner said. “I reckon we should all dose up one hour before moving, just to make sure we’re a hundred per­cent.” He glanced at Etain, wondering how she might appear after a week of normal meals, unbroken sleep, and clean clothing. She looked worryingly frail now, even though she was doing a valiant job of keeping up. “You, too. Especially you. Can Jedi take stimulants?”

“What exactly do they do?”

“The equivalent of ten hours’ good, solid sleep and four square meals. Until they wear off.”

“I ought to draw on the Force to sustain my stamina,” she said. “But the Force could do with a bit of help right now. Count me in.”

She sat down and rested her head on her folded arms. Maybe she was meditating. Niner switched to helmet comms.

“Dar, she’s not going to collapse on us, is she? We can’t carry anything else.”

“If she drops, it’ll be because she’s dead,” he said. “Trust me, she’s tougher than she looks. Physically, anyway.”

“She’d better be. Let’s get those remotes deployed.”

Jinart had identified a couple of high points to place the cam remotes. One was on the gutter of a farm building over­looking the entrance to the facility; the other was a tree whose canopy gave a good 270-degree view of the villa. The third remote—the one loaded with ribbon charge—needed more careful placement. She sat up on her hind legs and a pouch formed on her stomach like a cook’s apron.

“Normally I would carry my young around in this,” she said. She placed the three spheres in the pouch, giving the impression that she’d swallowed some particularly lumpy prey. “But if I don’t help you, my chances of raising another litter are remote. So I consider it an appropriate act.”

Niner was as fascinated as ever by the Gurlanin. The more he saw of the creatures, the less he knew about them. He hoped he might have the chance to find out more one day.

In an hour it would be midday. Atin took out his ration pack and mess tin, a flat sheet that snapped into shape. He placed his remaining ration cubes in it and held it out. “How much have we got among us?”

“I’m down to half a day’s worth,” Fi said.

“Me, too,” Niner said.

Darman reached into his pack and pulled out a carefully wrapped brick-sized bag. “A day’s worth of cubes and this dried kuvara and jerky. Let’s pool this and have two meals before we go in. If we pull this off, we’ll be running too fast to have lunch. If we don’t, it’d be a shame to die hungry.”

“Gets my vote,” Atin said.

Niner was going to ask Etain, but she was sitting cross-legged with her eyes shut and her hands in her lap. Darman put a finger to his lips and shook his head.

“Meditating,” he mouthed silently.

Niner hoped she emerged from it transformed. He was still one squad short of an adequate force for this job.

“You have ten seconds to live,” Ghez Hokan said. He took out Fulier’s lightsaber, and the blue shaft of energy buzzed into life. He wondered what made the blade a consistent, fi­nite length each time. “Speak.”

Guta-Nay, looking more bemused than he recalled, ig­nored the lightsaber. “I been captured by soldiers. I get away.”

“Republic troops? Human?”

“Yes. They catch me, they make me carry stuff.”

Hokan sheathed the blade. “They obviously spotted your talents. How did you get away?”

“They were sleeping. They not care. I go.”

“How many soldiers?”

“Four. And girlie.”

“Girlie?”

Guta-Nay pointed at the lightsaber. “She got one like that.”

So the woman with them was a Jedi. “Just four?”

“They got another lot.” He pursed his lips, grappling with a new word. “Squad.”

“Very well, so we have two squads. Eight men. That would fit.” Hokan turned to Hurati. “And our Trandoshan friend?”

“He says he’s highly irritated about his business being in­terrupted, sir, and he offers himself and three colleagues to help you deal with the inconvenience.”

“Thank him and accept his offer.” Hokan turned back to Guta-Nay. “I want you to think very hard. Did they say what they were going to do? Where they were going?”

“The villa.”

How predictable people were. The locals would tell you anything for money, sell you their daughters, inform on their neighbors. Hokan had half expected the ruse to be almost too obvious. “You’re doing well. Tell me what equipment they have.”

“Blasters. Explosives.” The Weequay made an indication of great width with his hands. “Big gun. They got armor with knives in gloves.”

“Describe.”

“Like yours.”

“What do you mean, like mine?”

Guta-Nay indicated his head and made a T-shape with his fingers. “Your helmet.”

It was difficult to take in. Guta-Nay was an inarticulate brute, but there was no ambiguity in his description. “Are you saying they were wearing Mandalorian armor?”

“Yeah. That it.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“Sure.”

“Anything else?” Hokan wondered how he expected this creature to be able to assess intelligence. “Anything else un­usual?”

Guta-Nay concentrated on the question as if his life de­pended on it, which it did not; Hokan would kill him anyway. “They all look the same.”

“They were wearing uniforms?”

“No, the men. Same faces.”

Children could be unerringly accurate in their observation of detail, and so could stupid adults. Guta-Nay was describing something that Dr. Uthan had told him about: soldiers, identical soldiers, mindlessly obedient soldiers—clone sol­diers.

Hokan couldn’t believe that clone troopers could operate like this. And the one weapon that would work against them was denied him, because in its present state it would kill everyone, Uthan and her team included.

But there were probably only eight of them. He had nearly a hundred droids. He had weapons.

“Hurati? Hurati!”

The young captain came running and saluted. “Sir?”

“I think we face a two-pronged attack. There are two squads, and I find it unlikely to imagine that they would not have one squad attack the villa, while the other made an at­tempt on the most obvious target. Divide the droid platoons between the locations.”

“That’s what you would do with two squads, sir? Not con­centrate your forces?”

“Yes, if I weren’t sure my objectives were consolidated in one place. They can’t know who and what is in which building. And they’ll attack at night, because while they’re bold, they’re not stupid.” He shook his head, suddenly interrupted by his own preoccupation. “Who would have thought clones could carry out this sort of operation? Uthan said they were no more than cannon fodder.”

“Commanded by Jedi, sir. Perhaps our tactician is the woman.”

It was an interesting idea. Hokan considered it for a mo­ment, then realized that Guta-Nay was waiting expectantly, oddly upright and apparently unafraid.

“Well?” Hokan said.

“I tell you stuff. You let me live?”

Hokan activated the lightsaber again and held it out to his side, just above the level of his right shoulder.

“Of course not,” he said, and swung the blade. “It would be bad for morale.”