"Of course, Colonel Solo. Anything I can do to help."

HM-3 leaned in close and whispered to Jacen. "Article five, subsection C- twenty-seven."

"I'm glad to hear that." Jacen smiled at the purchasing officer.

"That's why, under article five, subsection C-twenty-seven of the

Emergency Measures Act, I'm assigning you to the front-line ship that's had the most cannon misfires in the fleet, because there's no better place to gather facts than from the people who have to use this kit, and in the place where they have to use it." Jacen glanced around. Even with Force- enhanced hearing, he could detect very little breathing and no swallowing. "I'm more than happy to extend this field deployment to anyone who wants to better understand the end users' experience of procurement. Just say the word. We're always happy to accommodate you. In fact, I can guarantee you a ringside seat for the action."

Jacen smiled with all the diplomatic sweetness he'd learned from his mother and looked around the room, knowing he wouldn't be mown down by volunteers. Te Gaf looked stricken. Jacen felt he'd focused everyone on the significance of their job more effectively, and that they now knew what would happen if they thought adequate was good enough.

If you think it's good enough, then it's good enough for you to use personally—on the front line.

HM-3 followed Jacen out of the building, and they took an air taxi back to the GAG headquarters. It took a little while because the traffic was heavier than usual, and by the time Jacen got back to his office, the arrangements to transfer one civilian—Te Gaf, Biris J.—to the Ocean were already being discussed by GAG personnel. Corporal Lekauf and two of the other 967 Commando troopers greeted him like a hero in the briefing room.

"That was a good clean thing you did there, sir," said one trooper, grinning. "My rifle parts feel more efficient already."

Lekauf gave him a thumbs-up. "Your grandfather would have done the same, sir. Nice move."

In these barracks, that was an honest compliment and not a warning of the temptations of the dark side. Jacen preferred the judgment of ordinary soldiers to the arcane philosophical debate of the Jedi Council.

It's all going to change.

No more wars flaring up in each generation.

No more career politicians wringing what they can out of the system.

No more talk of freedom that just means a handful can do as they please while the rest struggle for survival.

No wonder the old guard feared the Sith, if that was what they threatened —the end of chaos that served only the few.

Jacen returned the thumbs-up to Lekauf. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

HM-3 plucked out a datapad. "I'll keep you apprised of the progress of the amendment, Colonel Solo. Is that all for today?"

"I may consult you again. You make all this easier to understand."

"That's my job."

Jacen just wanted to check. He had the germ of an idea. "Funny thing, laws and regulations, aren't they? That amendment gives me—and others, of course—the ability to change the amended law itself, doesn't it? It's quite circular."

HM-3 didn't care about right and wrong: just legal and illegal. If Jacen had designs on manipulating the amendment for uses beyond speeding up the dispatch of medical supplies, then the droid didn't regard it as part of his remit.

"Yes," HM-3 said. "It is."

Jacen tackled the pile of intelligence reports that had stacked up on his desk with renewed enthusiasm. The air was alive with imminence, of things about to happen. The endless thoughts of whom he would have to kill to achieve his sacrifice had gone away for a while, but they'd be back. In the meantime, he had a new tool with which to effect change.

I can change the law that lets me change laws.

If I use that wisely, I can bypass the Senate when I need to.

The power of simple human reason was as effective as the Force some days.

TEKSHAR FALLS CASINO, KUAT CITY, KUAT

What happened to the clones?" Mirta asked.

Kuat City stank of credits. Fett had never been able to understand how an industrial society whose wealth was built on heavy engineering still had an ancient aristocracy. Funny place. Anachronistic. Ahead of him, the smarter part of Kuat City glittered, elegant towers and spires that seemed a refined echo of the industrial skyline of cranes in the orbital shipyards.

He knew Kuat well. He'd once saved its shipyards from an attempt to destroy them. He hoped the place was going to show him some gratitude.

"Cannon fodder," he said, answering Mirta at last. He brought the speeder bike to a halt by an arcade of smart shops. "They died."

"Not the one I saw. He said some left the army."

"The only way out," said Fett, "was death or desertion."

"None of them retired?"

"Depends what you mean by retired. I heard a few ended up in care homes run by well-meaning peace campaigners, though."

Mirta seemed to be working out what retire meant for men who were trained to kill, who'd been kept apart from regular society, and who had an artificially shortened life span. The slight jut of her chin—a sure sign she was annoyed—communicated itself through the helmet. There was only so much she could hide.

"Did you ever hunt deserters?"

"No." He'd seen plenty, though. "Didn't pay enough."

"Did you care about them, Ba'buir?'"

Okay, she finds comfort in playing Mando. But I'll never get used to that name. "Not really."

"They were your brothers."

"No, they weren't." He motioned her to get off the speeder. "Blood isn't everything. You know that's the Mando way."

"But I bet you'll be shooting that clone a different line," she said. "How else are you going to get him to help you? Beat it out of him?

He looks as tough as you are."

"Maybe I'll just ask nicely," said Fett. "Right now I need to walk into the Tekshar and have a chat with Fraig. That might be a little inconvenient for him."

The Tekshar Falls was one of those feats of architectural near impossibility at which the Kuati excelled. Other establishments in the galaxy had impressive water features, but the Tekshar was a waterfall, a raging, hammering torrent from a river diverted at vast expense into the entertainment center of the city. It provided its own hydroelectric power, which was just as well given the ferocious array of lights that pierced the curtains of water. The casino was set within the waterfall itself, part construction, part natural stone, with turrets jutting through the water like tree fungi. To get to the entrance, gamblers had to walk through water plummeting five hundred meters.

"Pity, I've just had my hair done," Mirta said, solidly encased in armor from head to toe. "Is this how they stop the riffraff from coming in?"

"We are the riffraff," said Fett. "And we're going in."

He paused to hack into the Kuat police database from his HUD

system. They wouldn't mind. He was just contributing to law and order around here. Images of scumbags, petty villains, and serious bad boys —and girls—scrolled down the display inside his helmet. He waited, and shortly FRAIG, L., appeared. For gangland vermin, Fraig looked remarkably respectable: fresh-faced and framed with gold curls that would have made a mother weep. Fett suspected that if Fraig still had a mother, he'd have sold her to a Hutt by now.

"So you're just going to stroll in," said Mirta.

"I only want to ask him a question."