“I never stopped thinking about you, either,” said Darman. “Not for a moment.”

“So … how long does it take two squads to finish their meals in the bar?”

“Long enough, I think,” said Darman.

11

I’d rather have little Jedi like Barden and Etain working with us than the likes of Zey. They're sharp, no preconceptions, no agenda. And they're more concerned with pulling their weight in the team than all this philosophical osik about the dark side. Zey might be a seasoned man, but he seems to want respect from me just because he can open jars of caf with his mind.

–Kal Skirata, having a quiet drink with Captain Jailer Obrim, well away from prying eyes

Retail sector, Quadrant B-85, nine days later, observation vehicle in position overlooking warehouse space, 1145 hours, 380 days after Geonosis

Jusik was enjoying himself.

“So,” he said, and let the trendy dark visor slide down his nose so he could look over the top. “Do I look like a low-life taxi pilot?”

“Pretty convincing,” Fi said. He wondered if Jusik ever had the sense to be scared. “Do I look like a fare?”

Sev, sitting beside Jusik in the taxi's front seat, had a detached DC-17 scope balanced on the vessel's console and patched into a datapad by a thin yellow wire. He was pinging, as Skirata called it. Each time a delivery transport or other craft passed through the dead-end canyon of warehouses that lay beneath the retail levels above, Sev checked the registration transponder against CSF's database. He also checked the cargo with the scope's sensor scan.

Fi was impressed by the ease with which Fixer and Atin had set up the remote link without CSF spotting it. They hadn't even had to call in Ordo to sort it out. Ordo had melted into the city again two days ago, no mean feat for an ARC trooper captain.

Fi tried not to wonder where he might be. It was bad enough thinking about Sicko.

“Okay, that one was routine. Garment delivery.” Sev made a low rumble in his throat, almost like an animal. “What do we look like from the outside now?”

“At the moment, one Rodian taxi driver reading a holozine while he's parked and waiting.”

Fi could see out, but nobody could see in—or at least they could see something that wasn't actually in the taxi, thanks to the thin film of photoactive micro-emitters coating the interior. “Clever stuff, this gauze.”

“Thank you,” Jusik said. “It took me a long time to work out how to program moving images into it.”

“Are you bored?” Sev said, looking around at Fi. He still seemed wary of directing any of his comments at Jedi, even if all rank had been swept aside. “'Cos I'm not. And your constant yakking is getting to me somewhat, ner vod.”

Jusik cut in. “Sorry, Sev. My fault.”

Sev looked embarrassed for a moment. “If you're interested, fifty-one of the seventy crates I've clocked on this watch show up on the CSF database tagged as criminal. Theft is a bigger industry than legit business here.”

Jusik raised an eyebrow. “Isn't that the sort of thing Obrim's people might like to know?”

“Isn't it the sort of stuff that would bring the boys in blue crashing in here and blowing our op?”

“Point taken.”

“No offense … Bardan.”

Delta hadn't worked with Jedi much, at least not the junior ones. Fi savored a moment of delight at seeing Sev's stone-cold pretense reduced to embarrassed deference. All Jedi were supposed to be humble, but Jusik actually was. He seemed to see himself as nothing special, just a man with some accidental skills that didn't make him any more important than the next person, only different.

So they waited.

And that was a lot harder than it looked.

“Whoa,” Sev said. “Look at this one …” Fi and Jusik followed the angle of Sev's scope. “CSF database has this tagged as RESTRICTED.”

“Could mean it's of interest to us, or could mean organized crime.”

Jusik's visor had slipped to the end of his nose. “Or both.”

It was a medium-sized delivery transport with dull green livery caked with dust. The identity transponder was evidently fake, because when the crate aligned itself with the platform at the doors to Warehouse 58, and the hatches sprang open, there were just a few boxes inside. The warehouse doors eased open far enough to let a repulsor cart edge out, and two droids began loading the small containers onto the repulsor's flatbed.

“Small but heavy load by the look of it,” Fi said.

“And we've got company.” Sev realigned the scope, and the datapad hummed into recording mode. “Second transport backing up to it.”

Another delivery vehicle hovered, edging astern until it was level with the other side of the landing platform. The boxes were transferred to it. They didn't go into the warehouse at all.

“That's irregular,” Sev said. “And we don't like irregular, do we? ID transponder says a legit rental vessel.”

A female human in coveralls—white skin, wavy ginger hair to the shoulders, medium build, short—stepped out of the green transport onto the platform to be met by a male Falleen who'd jumped out of the rental. He was young, as far as Fi could tell, with light green skin, and his mundane pilot's rig was a little too long in the leg for him. All details were worth noting.

The two turned their backs to the skylane and appeared to be talking.

“Well, that's a rare sight, and I bet he's not on the CSF database,” Sev said, checking the 'pad. Images flicked across the screen at a blinding speed while the system sought a match from the image the scope had grabbed. After a few moments the screen read: NO MATCH. “Falleen don't venture offworld very often, and he certainly isn't here to check out the tourist sights. Let's try the woman.”

Fi watched. There was a match indeed, and one that came up rapidly.

“Fierfek,” Sev said. “Her name's Vinna Jiss. And she's a government employee.”

“I'm not going to like this, am I?”

“Not when you hear she works in GAR logistics, no.”

“Chakaar,” Fi said. “She could be on legit business, of course, but then I'm such a trusting soul.”

“Falleen male and GAR clerk? Hello? Do I have to draw you a picture?” Sev sighed to himself. “They certainly put those Falleen pheromones to good use. I bet she'd do him any favor he asked. Getting security information out of her would be even easier.”

The two transports closed their hatches, leaving the woman and the Falleen on the platform, and lifted back into the skylane. It looked like any other delivery—except that it was a transfer of cargo, which was not usual, and the two waiting on the platform oozed bad guys from every pore and scale.

The two targets looked at their datapads just like warehouse staff checking a consignment. Then the Falleen turned and began walking up a pedestrian ramp to the retail level, and Vinna Jiss hung around.

“I'm naturally curious,” Sev said. “Fi, you up for a discreet trail of those two?”

Fi's heart was pounding. Training and instinct took over. He was back on Kamino again, stalking an armed target in the simulated urban training terrain in Tipoca City. It was just the town that was simulated: the ammunition was real, deadly real. “Ready.”

“Bardan, back up behind that pillar, will you?”

“We can't abandon this position until the next watch arrives, Sev. Let me call for backup. What if they've pinged us and it's a decoy?”

“Okay, you let us out on foot, and call in Niner and Scorch to relieve you. Then you stand by via the comlink just in case.”

“That's not standard operating procedure.”

“This isn't standard operating terrain, either.” Sev almost said sir Fi heard the beginning of a hissed s. Delta's self-appointed hard man poked his finger hard in his right ear as if he was afraid the bead-sized link would fall out. “There goes Jiss. Up the ramp, too. Come on, Fi. Move it.”