Zey was all right, too, then.

Vau had been watching the exchange with mild interest, and Ordo had been watching him, because he knew the man all too well.

“Sergeant Vau, do you have any view on this … ah … leave situation?” said Ordo.

“Oh no, I'm just a civilian now,” Vau said. The strill rumbled. Vau, apparently distracted, fondled its ghastly, stinking head, his slightly narrowed eyes revealing a doting affection that he never seemed to spare for any other living creature. “I'm just hanging around. When those detainees are released, I'll offer them a room for a while, and I'll have a conversation with them. Nothing to do with the GAR or the Senate at all. Merely a private citizen doing what he can to welcome visitors to Coruscant.”

Jusik was watching the exchange with an expression that suggested he was both excited and aware that the stakes had just been raised. They were subverting democracy in one sense, but they were also saving their political masters from a decision they could never be seen to take, yet had to.

“That's the worst thing about having chakaare like us around,” Skirata said. “We just wander off, find someplace that you don't know about, and hole up in it and get into all sorts of mischief that you also know nothing about. And then we bill you for it. Dreadful.”

“Dreadful,” Zey echoed. “Is this the kind of thing that CSF might notice?”

“Were we to get a little out of hand, I imagine very senior officers in CSF might need to be reassured, but not by you.”

“Dreadful,” Zey said. “Hypothetically, anyway.”

Language was a wonderful thing, Ordo thought. Skirata had just told Zey that he was about to go bandit, as he called it, running an unauthorized shoot-to-kill operation in a civilian location and simply sending Zey the bill. Vau planned to interrogate the prisoners. CSF senior command would be placated by Skirata should anything go wrong, without any need for Zey to be involved. And yet Zey had authorized it all.

And the subject had still not been discussed.

“I wonder if anyone will notice our commandos on leave here,” Jusik said, apparently catching on.

“Probably,” said Skirata. “And wouldn't it be nice if we also extended that home deployment to honest ordinary clone troopers, lots of them? That'd be good for morale.”

“And reassuring for the public to see soldiers in armor around the capital.”

“I wonder how I can persuade the Senate officers that it's a good idea?”

Zey cut in. “Have you met Mar Rugeyan, the Senate's head of public affairs? Just asking.”

Skirata nodded. “I do believe I've had some contact with him, yes.”

“Excellent,” Zey said. “I know you two will get along very well.”

And the conversation that had never taken place was over.

Skirata stood to leave, and Vau gave the strill a gentle shove to persuade it to drop to the floor. It complained in a gravelly rumble but settled at his feet, looking up at Skirata with red-rimmed gold eyes. Skirata's hand was still cupped, arm at his side, in that way Ordo knew often preceded a fight.

“Kal, I hear Atin's returning,” Vau said.

Skirata walked out of the room, head down, Ordo right behind him. Jusik followed.

“You stay clear,” Skirata said quietly. “I'm meeting them all straight off Fearless. That includes Delta. And they're not yours to run anymore, remember? You just sit tight at the barracks and wait for me to give you a location.”

Ordo wasn't fooled by Vau's restrained politeness. Seven years ago Vau had loomed over him as a figure of authority in his black Mando armor for the first time, the strill at his heels. Its name was Lord Mirdalan. Ordo, like all the Nulls, had perfect recall; he sometimes wished he hadn't. But at least it gave him clarity, and he knew the source of all his fears and anxieties. Lord Mirdalan—Mird—had lunged at him at Vau's command, snapping.

Ordo had drawn the little hold-out blaster that Skirata had let him keep and would have killed the animal had Kal'buir not yelled, “Check!” and brought him to a frozen halt as his blaster aim came to rest between Mird's eyes. Vau, Ordo recalled, had laughed: he said that Ordo was ge'verd—almost a warrior. And Skirata had aimed a kick at Mird to drive it off, saying there was no “almost” about it.

Ordo watched the strill carefully. The creature trotted ahead of them, sniffing noisily in crevices and leaving behind a waft of pungent scent and a trail of drool.

“If that thing's going to accompany you on jobs,” said Skirata, “you'd better keep it under control, or find a use for a strill pelt.”

He drew up his arm and flicked his wrist before even Ordo could react. The three-sided blade shaved past Mird and thudded into the polished pleekwood floor a pace ahead of it. The knife vibrated to a standstill.

Mird squealed, leaping sideways. Ordo stepped between Vau and Skirata ready to defend Kal'buir in yet another confrontation with the man he loathed.

But Skirata just turned to fix Vau with a stare that said he wasn't joking. Vau stared back, his long hard face suddenly a killer's again.

“It's not the strill's fault,” Skirata said. He walked a few paces forward and pulled the knife from the floor. The strill backed away from him, lip curled back to reveal its fangs. “But you have your warning, both of you. We need to get this job done, and that's the only reason I haven't gutted both of you already. Understood?”

“I've moved on,” said Vau. “And it's time you did, before I end up having to kill you.”

Ordo really didn't like that. He ejected the custom vibroblade in his gauntlet, a better weapon at close quarters than his blasters.

Skirata gave him the palm-down gesture: Leave it. “Stay useful, Walon.” He beckoned Jusik and Ordo to follow him. “And I hope that Atin's moved on too, because I won't stand in his way now.”

“How far is too far, Kal? Can you answer that? How far did you go?” Vau called after him. “I made that boy a warrior. Without me, he wouldn't be alive today.”

With him, Ordo thought, Atin very nearly wasn't.

“Why didn't you mention to Zey that we might also have a leak within the Grand Army?” Ordo asked.

“Because,” Skirata said, “I can't assume I know who it isn't. The leak might not even know that they're the one, either. Until then, only the strike team will know we're looking.”

“What about Obrim? He's an ally.”

“I hope so. But in the end, who are the only people we can really trust?”

“Ourselves, Kal'buir”

“So we make sure we know who's watching our back kar'tayli ad meg hukaat'kama.”

It was good advice to live by. Ordo knew who always watched his.

RAS Fearless, inbound, to Coruscant Sector Control, 369 days after Geonosis

“I really should make a holo of this,” Commander Gett said. He reached into the assortment of pouches clipped to his belt and took out a small recorder. “It doesn't happen that often.”

Etain and the commander of the assault ship stood on the gantry that ran around the upper hangar bulkhead and watched the extraordinary spectacle beneath them on the deck. She had heard of this thing, but never seen it. It was the Dha Werda Verda—aMandalorian ritual battle chant.

Men from the Forty-first Elite and some of the ship's company—about fifty in all, helmets off—were learning to perform it with some instruction from Fi and Scorch. Sev easy to spot by the blood-red streaks daubed on his helmet, sat on an ammunition crate nearby, cleaning his sniper attachment and looking as if he wasn't interested in joining in.

He was, of course. Etain could sense it, and she wasn't even properly attuned to Sev's presence in the Force.