“No pressure, then …”
“In your own time, fire when ready.”
Ben recalled his recent training. “Why not center mass?”
“That’s the army waykill or wound, you’ve still put the target out of action. Police snipers have to worry about hostages and stuff, so they’re trained to incapacitate instantlyhead shot. Assassination doesn’t have to be as instant, just dead. But a head shot’s still best.” Lekauf crooked his forefingers and thumbs five centimeters apart and made a gesture as if he were putting on a blindfold. “That’s the zone you’re aiming at. A five-centimeter band around the head at eye level. Put one in there and you’ve got a kill. But with the kind of frangible round you’ll be using, as long as you hit the head or neck at all, the result’s the same.”
“What if I can only get a shot at center mass?”
“He won’t respond to cardiopulmonary resuscitation after a round hits him, believe me.” When Lekauf was getting technical, Ben knew he was enjoying his subject. “Optimum is still the head shot, though.”
“But there’s wind speed and everything.”
“This Karpaki has smart sensor optics. Senses the windage and allows for it. They’ve improved a bit in recent years.”
“If it’s that clever, then why do I have to train?”
“To get used to shooting someone who’s not trying to kill you. Who doesn’t even know you’re there. Not the Jedi way, is it?”
It was just a dummy. But it moved like Gejjen.
Ben aimed.
It was just like using a lightsaber, really. Letting the Force guide the hand, the eye …
He squeezed the trigger as the gel-form sat down on the chair, and the round caught the point of its right temple. Gel and fragments plumed in the air, and the dummy slumped forward.
Lekauf, arms folded, considered the inert form with the eye of a connoisseur. Ben was taken aback by how uncomfortable it made him feel, especially when the gel-form suddenly sat upright, then stood.
He was sure he couldn’t shoot it a second time.
“And again,” said Lekauf.
Ben spent the next hour getting used to anticipating movement, waiting for the gel-form to settle for just long enough to take the shot. It was harder than he thought: the dummy made no impression in the Force, which limited Ben’s senses. And it kept getting up and walking around each time, a distressing gel ghost of a man he was going to kill.
There was no emotion in it. That made it hard. But he was getting good single shots. He tried to see it as a technical exercise, like lightsaber drill, an action totally separate from the nasty business of taking off heads, and imagined the gel-form with the short dark hair of Dur Gejjen.
“Ben,” Lekauf said quietly, “I’ll be there and so will Shevu. You’ve got backup if anything goes wrong. If you can’t get at him, or you don’t get a clean shot, we’ll make sure he drops and stays down. Don’t sweat it.”
“But that’ll expose you two.”
“Like I said, it’s just in case things don’t go according to plan. Makes sense to build in some contingency in case we don’t get another chancebecause it’ll be easier than hitting him on Corellia.”
Ben pondered. “We don’t even know the location. I could be doing this in the middle of a field or a crowded restaurant.”
“You sabotaged Centerpoint. This is going to be a lot easier.”
“When I did that, I still thought it was fun.”
“Come on, you can do it.”
There was something about Lekauf’s faith and admiration that galvanized Ben. He concentrated on the dummy and tried to see himself not as shooting a helpless automaton or even a corrupt politician, but as solving a problem. A couple of hours later, he was hitting the five-centimeter zone 95 percent of the time.
“Better have a break now,” Lekauf said.
Ben checked to make sure the adjacent lanes were clear and walked up the range to look at the gel-form. The more times he’d hit it, the slower the self-repair became. Its internal power supply needed recharging. It was struggling to get up, and Ben found himself increasingly disturbed as he watched the pathetic, anonymous figure scrambling to roll onto its chest and get on all fours. He forced himself to stop looking at it.
It was all the worse for there being none of the real aftermath of injury that he’d seen once too often.
“Lunch,” Lekauf called, more insistently this time.
Ben wasn’t certain he was that hungry.
BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, TEN KILOMETERS OUTSIDE KELDABE, MANDALORE
Goran Beviin looked up from the trench, a pitchfork in one hand and a muddy grin on his face. It was beginning to rain and he was up to his ankles in animal dung, but it seemed to make him perfectly happy.