Etain walked briskly at his side and grabbed his hand. “For goodness' sake, Ordo, try to look like a couple.”
Ordo didn't much like that, but the mission came first.
They kept twenty meters behind Jiss, hampered by the lack of crowds of office workers to hide among at this time of night. Maybe they should have waited until daylight. But nobody knew how much time they might have to act. It was a case of now.
Etain did that side-to-side head movement as if she was straining to hear something. “Okay … people behind us, but they seem to have their minds on matters other than us …”
“How do you know that?”
“No feeling of focus on me, or you.”
“Handy,” Ordo said, but he hitched back his jacket and hooked his thumb in his belt to be ready to grab the Verp.
They had followed Jiss for about half a klick along the shrub-lined office walkways when the few pedestrians became none and they had no cover between her and them. Jiss turned right into a side alley and Ordo picked up speed, drawing his weapon and holding it as discreetly as he could against his chest.
“Where's she gone?”
“The alley,” Ordo hissed. “Are you blind?”
“No, I mean she's gone. Gone. I can't feel anybody there.”
Ordo cocked the Verp and checked the status indicator. He might need that live round after all. He slowed at the corner and froze for a second before stepping into the opening with the gun raised, two-handed.
He was looking at a man's back about fifty meters ahead. No sign of Jiss. Maybe that really is a Clawdite.
“Oh my … ,” Etain said.
Ordo was about to discharge the lethal round into the containers of shrubbery and try for a tag pellet but the man appeared to crouch into a low run. There was a reflection, a split-second gleam that said metal, alloy—weapon.
He fired instinctively.
The silent shot hit something with a wet sssputt and whoever or whatever he had hit rolled, stumbled, and raced off to the left down another passage. Ordo broke into a sprint, Etain pounding after him. He reached the point of impact and saw fluid—dark, oily—before discharging both tag pellets into the shrubs and lining up the next lethal round. This had gone wrong. He had got it wrong. But he couldn't turn back now: this had to be resolved. He swung left and there was someone lying on the paving, writhing, and he aimed the Verpine.
“Check!” Etain yelled. “Check!”
And in the fraction of a second that he froze on the safety command she had heard Skirata use, a shock wave of air and heat flared past him and hit the figure on the ground in a blinding, deafening flash. Without his visor he was stunned for a second, too. But he dropped on the body, holding the Verp clear, and grabbed an arm.
Its limb melted away in his grip.
That second became endless, a layered image.
I'm going to throttle that Jedi.
What the fierfek have I grabbed?
It's a Clawdite.
He looked up at Etain but she raised her blaster again and spun around. There was a second deafening, blinding crack of a PEP laser discharging.
Ordo had a tight grip of something very heavy and black and sleekly furred that had stopped moving. And that was an odd thing for a wounded Clawdite—a humanoid when not shapeshifting—to become.
A few meters from Etain, a human female lay crumpled on the paving, gasping for breath. It was Supervisor Wennen, not Jiss. Ordo defaulted to training and opened his comlink.
“Bard'ika? We need extraction urgently. Two prisoners, both injured. Now!”
His instinct told him to find some cover fast. The PEP laser would bring someone running before long. He dragged whatever creature he had shot into an alcove and motioned furiously at Etain to do the same with Wennen. It was amazing how heavy a weight a little Jedi could haul.
But he wanted to hit her, and hard.
“You di'kut,” he hissed. “I could have been killed. Never use that command. Do you hear me? Never! If you try that again, I'll shoot you.”
Etain's wide-eyed stare was either fury or shock. He didn't care.
“I thought you were going to finish it off!” She knelt over the black creature at his side and put her hands on it. “It's alive. I have to keep it alive. You shouldn't have fired.”
“That's my call to make.”
“You shot a Gurlanin—”
There aren't any Gurlanins currently on Coruscant, so Zey says. “Spare me your hindsight lecture.” Gurlanin. Shape-shifter. Qiiluran. Spy. Never seen one before. “Jusik, can you hear me? Can Vau handle shapeshifter first aid?”
Jusik's voice was breathless. “With you in ten minutes, Ordo, hang on. Where's your speeder?”
“Not here. Just move it, please.”
Etain had her fingers spread on the creature's black coat, her eyes shut tight. “I can use the Force to control the bleeding.”
“Okay, you do that, Jedi.” He squatted over Wennen and checked her breathing with the Verp held to her head. “So, Supervisor, why were you following us?”
Wennen looked in bad shape. Her eyes were streaming and she curled up into a ball, clutching her chest. Etain had fired the PEP laser at close range. “Republic … Audit … you shoot me, chum … and you're in big trouble …”
“What?”
“Treasury officer?”
“Show me, or you're the one in trouble, ma'am.”
She let out an anguished gasp and fumbled for her pocket. Ordo decided to play safe and extract the contents for her. Yes, it was an identichip: Republic Treasury Audit Division.
“You've nearly fouled up a GAR operation,” he said.
“I was following Jiss.”
“Why?”
“Supplies going missing. So did she. Who are you?” She pulled back her head a little to focus on his bare hand gripping the Verp. “Well, that tells me you're not Trooper Corr.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you the captain who came in the other day? Because you certainly recognize me.”
So much for deniability: this would be all over the Treasury in hours if he let her get up and walk away—not that she seemed able to. “We need to have a little chat.”
“And what's that?” Wennen tilted her head to look at the Gurlanin, lying inert while Etain struggled to stabilize its wound.
Etain opened her eyes a little.
“This,” she said, “used to be one of our allies.”
Operational house, Qibbu's Hut, 0045 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
Skirata assembled a makeshift deployment tote board from three large sheets of flimsi and stuck them to the wall.
It was old technology, real words on real flimsi, not shifting lights and code. He needed its solid reassurance right now. Things were turning osikla.
Corr—assigned to the team on Skirata's whim—stood beside him, dutifully listing target locations by numbers of visits and tagged suspects on one sheet while Skirata kept a tally of which commando was deployed, and where they all were for the next twelve standard hours. Without his armor and bodysuit, Corr was just a very young man with durasteel mechanisms where he should have had real hands, and it broke Skirata's heart.
Droid. They're making you into what they always thought you were, son.
Skirata shook himself out of it and concentrated on the flimsi. He hated holocharts. He liked solid things that he could grab hold of, even if they had their limitations. It also kept his hands occupied when he was reaching the limits of his confidence. He had to stand firm. His men needed to see him in control, reassuring, believing in them.