“I think you might really be in trouble with Zey this time, Ordo.”
“And what do you think he's going to do about it?”
“Aren't you afraid?”
“Not since Kamino.”
If Jusik understood that, it didn't show. “Is it true that your brother Mereel hijacked a transport to Kamino?”
“It's known as hardening targets, General. Challenging security to improve it. We do that.”
It was a lie, but not entirely: the Nulls tried not to remove GAR assets from the battlefield unless it was absolutely necessary, but in this case Kal'buir had said it was. The Jedi command turned a blind eye to the irregularities if they detected them because the Null squad produced unparalleled results. No, Zey wouldn't touch him. If he was foolish enough to try, he would learn a hard lesson.
“General, do you remember being taken from your parents?”
Jusik glanced to his left and a few moments later a CSF patrol appeared on their flank, dipped a wing in acknowledgment, and dropped away below them again.
“They're just pinging us to be sure we are who they think we are,” the Jedi said, evading the question. “Can't trust anything to be what it seems these days.”
“Indeed.”
“I hope CSF aren't offended by our intervention.”
Ordo tightened his grip. “It's not their fault they can't handle this.”
“They're very competent.”
“They're competent at defense. They're not used to attacking. We can think like an enemy better than they can.”
“You can. I fear I never will.”
“I was trained to kill and destroy by any means possible. I suspect you were trained to obey some rules.”
“I do actually.”
“What? Obey rules?”
“No, I remember being taken from my family. Just being taken. Not my family, though.”
“And what makes you so attached to us?” Ordo chose his words precisely, knowing what attachment meant to a Jedi. He knew the answer anyway. “And doesn't that worry you?”
Jusik paused for a moment and then turned with an anxious smile. Jedi weren't supposed to feel powerful emotions like vengeance or love or hate. Ordo could now see that conflict on the boy's face daily.
And Jusik was a boy: Ordo was the same physical age as the general—twenty-two—but he felt a generation older, despite being born only eleven years ago. And the Jedi drew strength from the things that tore up his heart, just as Kal Skirata did.
He and Jusik were opposites in so many ways and yet so very similar in others.
“You have such a passionate sense of belonging,” Jusik said at last. “And you never complain about the way you're used.”
“Save your sympathy for the troopers,” Ordo said. “Nobody uses us. And a clear sense of purpose is a strength.”
The southern side of the logistics depot was a wasteland of shattered metal and rubble. From the air, it looked like an abandoned construction site with a brightly colored perimeter fence. As Jusik dropped lower, the perimeter resolved into crowds held back by a CSF cordon. The GAR supplies base was right on the boundary of a civilian area, separated only by a strip of landing platforms, with levels of warehousing operated by droids below it.
It had obviously been a big device. Had the same bomb exploded in the civilian heart of Coruscant, the casualties would have run to thousands.
“Whatever do they find to look at?” Jusik asked. He had trouble finding a space to set down and had to land outside the security cordon. He was clearly offended by the sightseers and didn't wait for Ordo to clear a path through the crowd for him. For a quietly spoken man, Jusik could certainly make himself heard. “Citizens, unless you have contributions to make here, can I suggest you clear the area in case there's a second device still set to detonate?”
Ordo was impressed at the speed with which most of the crowd melted away. The resistantly curious hung around in small groups.
“You don't want to see this,” Jusik said.
They paused, and then walked away. A CSF incident support vessel skimmed across the strip and hovered for a moment beside Jusik. The pilot leaned a little way out of the hatch. “Never seen mind influence in action before, sir. Thank you.”
“I wasn't using the Force,” Jusik said.
Ordo found a new reason to like this Jedi every day. He took the war as personally as Kal'buir did.
A thickset man in gray tunic waved to them from the inner cordon, where a large group of civilians and hovercams waited. Captain Jailer Obrim wasn't wearing his Senate Guard finery any longer. Ordo knew him welclass="underline" since they'd worked together with Omega Squad on the spaceport siege, Obrim's time had been increasingly taken up with counterterrorism duties. He was seconded to CSF now, but they still didn't seem able to persuade him to wear the blue uniform.
“Can you influence the media to go away, General?” Ordo said. “Or shall I do it manually?”
The CSF forensics investigation team was still picking a slow and careful path through the debris of the entrance to Bravo Eight when Ordo and Jusik reached the cordon. Set back ten meters from the inner cordon was a screen of white plastoid sheet with the CSF badge repeated across its surface: the worst debris had been screened from the cams and prying eyes.
It was grim work for civilian police. Ordo knew that they had neither the expertise nor the numbers to handle what was happening lately. And how did they cope with the things they saw if they hadn't been trained to deal with them from childhood, as he had? For a moment he felt pity.
But there was work to do. Ordo flicked on the voice projection of his helmet with a quick eye movement. “Mind your backs, please.”
An HNE crew and a dozen other media representatives—some wets, as Skirata called organic life-forms, some tinnies, or droids—formed a cautious audience for the grisly aftermath of the explosion. They parted instantly, even before they looked around and saw Ordo striding toward them. Then they gave him an even wider berth. An ARC trooper cut an imposing figure, and a captain—marked in the brilliant scarlet that subconsciously said danger to many humanoid species—cleared a big path.
Obrim deactivated a section of the cordon to let Jusik and Ordo pass.
“This is General Bardan Jusik,” Ordo said. “He's one of us. Can he wander around and assess the site?”
Obrim looked Jusik up and down with the air of a man who believed more in hard data than the Force. “Of course he can. Mind the evidence markers, sir.”
“I'll be cautious,” Jusik said, meshing his fingers in front of him to do that little Jedi bow that Ordo found fascinating. Sometimes Jusik was one of the boys, and sometimes he was ancient, wisely sober, another creature entirely. “I won't contaminate evidence.”
Obrim waited for him to walk away and turned to Ordo. “Not that it'd matter. The forensic is getting us nowhere. Maybe we need the Mystic Mob to give us a break. How are you, anyway?”
“Focused. Very focused.”
“Yes, your boss is pretty focused, too. He can curse the slime off a Hutt, that man.”
“He takes all casualties personally, I'm afraid.”
“I know what you mean. I'm sorry about your boys, by the way. They catch it coming and going, don't they?”
Skirata was bent deep in conversation with a CSF officer, their heads almost touching, talking in low and agitated voices. He swung around as Ordo approached. His face was gray with suppressed anger.