“Don't you ever watch the holonews?” he asked, pointing at the darkened screen on the wall.
“Too much to take in.” Niner resumed reading. “Other people's complicated lives.”
Atin had settled in the corner with his DC-17 on his lap. They all kept the rifle close to them when they weren't in public. It was too obviously a commando weapon in the street, and had to be replaced by a discreet blaster. But back here, they lavished affection on the Deece again. It was the weapon they had been raised with and now lived by.
Fi had his slung over his shoulder, and he was looking out the window onto the catwalk opposite, the one that linked another level of seedy bars with the concourse below. He was invisible to the Coruscant beyond the transparisteel, but clearly it was painfully visible to him. Etain could feel his longing.
Fi had changed since Qiilura. Etain had first sensed him in the Force as good-natured and calm. A year later his facade was as unfailingly cheerful, but the undertow was darker, more desperate. He'd seen too much of the war. And he had glimpsed something even more painful and guaranteed to trouble him: ordinary people on Coruscant, leading normal lives of the kind he would never have.
She didn't need the Force to help her taste that. She could see the constant question on his face when he glanced at couples and families, of all species. Why not me? Why is this life not for me?
It was what Darman had asked.
Family and clan—family and fatherhood—seemed of overwhelming importance to Mandalorian men. They certainly drove Skirata.
Then Etain knew exactly what the Force had in mind for her, and it was not the path of a Jedi any longer. It was to ensure that at least one cloned man was given back the future that had been taken away from him at birth, or whatever cold distant process served for birth in those Kaminoan laboratories.
Etain would make him a father one day. She would give Darman a son.
But neither of them had the luxury of a normal life in this war. Her dream would be a secret—even from him for the time being.
Then Etain put the thought from her mind and closed her eyes to meditate, unselfconscious because she was among true friends.
She drifted in formless calm, hearing only the slowed pace of her own heartbeat, until the door buzzed.
She snapped alert again. So did Omega and Skirata.
Etain saw the squad individually as clearly as she did any other beings, and not just because the Force tinted them with their unique shades of character. She had ceased to see their identical faces or their armor, and experienced instead only their distinct personalities and habits.
And yet when they moved—when they switched to their soldier state of being—they were like a single perfect predator.
The buzz made them all look up together, not like ordinary men responding by staggered milliseconds one after the other, but in one movement, absolutely synchronized, and their expressions and the angle of their heads and their frozen alertness were one. Then, with another perfect single movement, they split like a fist opening into fingers and snapped to positions around the room, rifles trained on the door.
Not a word: not one hand signal from Niner. They hadn't even had time to put on their helmets and activate the shared comlink. Whatever told them to move there, do this, watch that, was so thoroughly ingrained in them from drilling that they seemed almost to be operating on instinct.
Their dark, high-cheekboned, exotic faces were expressionless. Except for the rapid blinking, they were completely and utterly still. Etain suddenly saw them as that single exquisite predator again, and it scared her.
Their DC-17 rifles all blipped once in unison as each weapon charged up to fire.
“Vau's not due yet. And Delta's on perimeter.” Skirata had his Verpine shatter gun trained this time, not his small blaster—an indication of how much higher he felt the stakes were. “Etain, you feel anything?”
“Nothing.” She was certain she would have perceived a threat by now. She was suddenly aware that she had drawn her lightsaber. She hadn't even felt herself move. “Nothing at all.”
“Okay … on three … one … two … th—”
And the door opened. Etain flinched involuntarily, grasping her lightsaber two-handed. A scent hit her, a foul damp musk.
“Fierfek,” Skirata said. “You di'kut. We could have blown your head off.”
Niner, Ordo, Darman, and Fi made annoyed clicks and sighs and lowered their Deeces. Atin didn't.
Vau walked in with two straining carryalls and a six-legged, loose-skinned shambles of pale gold short fur ambling behind him. So that was the strill. And the absence of malice and tension had been … ice-cold, calm, utterly detached Walon Vau.
“At'ika, lower your Deece,” Skirata said softly.
“If you say so, Sarge.” And although Atin obeyed, his steady stare at Vau was an eloquent loaded weapon.
“Come on in,” said Fi. “Ain't nobody here but us clones.”
“You could have called ahead,” Skirata said.
Vau lowered the carryalls to the floor, and Ordo pounced on them. “Just challenging your security, like I ought to.”
“Well, either Delta and Jusik got instantly stupid or they let pass someone they knew, so don't get too cocky. Anything you want to tell us?”
“I've shut down the safe house and Enacca has cleaned up.”
Etain listened intently to the language, spoken in the code of euphemism out of long habit. Cleaning up certainly meant removing bloodstains, because she'd seen them, but she had the feeling it was more than that.
“No further business with our two friends?” Skirata said.
“That's the trouble with Coruscant,” Vau said. “High balconies are safety risks. At least that confirms our two guests weren't Jedi, eh?” Vau found a seat, and the strill scrambled onto his lap: it took Etain a moment to work out what he meant, and the realization shocked her. “The other fortunate thing is that I was able to talk to Vinna Jiss's supervisor at GAR logistics as her … landlord and complain that she had skipped owing me rent. The supervisor was sympathetic and said she was an unreliable employee.”
“So?” said Skirata. Omega had disappeared back to the rooms that led off the main one. Except Atin: Atin waited, a block of black hatred, and Ordo stacked the explosives.
“So at least we don't have to worry about her being missed too badly.” Vau glanced at Atin, almost as if he was seeking a greeting, but got no reaction. “And she confirmed that there was one other person in logistics that she had to leave information for in an agreed place, a dead letter drop inside the GAR complex, whenever she could manage it. In a locker in the female 'freshers.”
“What? You're kidding me.”
“I know. We spend millions on the latest ships but we're stuffed by a simple security leak that wouldn't baffle a Kitonak grocer.”
Etain felt Skirata generate a little dark vortex of rage. His face drained of color. “Why are they so shabla clueless?”
“Because they're a bureaucracy, and they're not the ones in the front line. Anyway, none of the traffic information is impossible to dig out by other routes. It's just quick and easy—all wrapped up in one chip. Worth having because it saves them a lot of time, which means they don't have many personnel. Small and opportunistic network, I reckon.”
Skirata was rubbing his face slowly with both hands, exasperated and weary. “So she didn't know who collected the data, other than that they could use the female 'freshers without attracting attention? Or what their schedule was?”
“If she had known, I can guarantee she would have told me.”
“I'll bet.”
“So we need someone in there to flush that person out.”
“That's me,” Ordo said, and went on making the thermal plastoid into neat piles. Etain had counted two hundred small rectangular packets so far. “All I have to do is withdraw the trooper who's seconded to the transport division and step in.”