16
Mhi solus tome
Mhi solus dar’totne
Mhi me dinui an
Mhi bajuri verde
We are one when together.
We are one when parted.
We will share all.
We will raise warriors.
-Traditional Mandalorian marriage contract and ceremony, in its entirety
Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 2340 hours, 384 days after Geonosis
There was a lot to be said for having a matte-black army-issue bodysuit.
It provided a reasonable amount of protection against blaster and projectile weapons, and it was low visibility at night, unlike ARC trooper armor. Ordo felt in the pockets of the knee-length dark gray jacket that Vau had lent him and felt compelled to inhale the unfamiliar scent of its wearer: antiseptic soap, weapon-lubricating oil, and a maleness that was not his. But it disguised the skintight suit. That was all it had to do.
It also disguised the Verpine shatter gun in his holster. “What makes you think she’s going to stick to her shift hours?” Etain said, looking slightly past him, head almost touching his. They sat in the closed cockpit of a speeder parked a hundred meters from the logistics center, where they could watch the doors. To anyone watching, they were just a young couple in a parked speeder late at night, like a thousand others at that moment.
“The fact she bothered to return to work at all. That means she wants her pattern to appear normal again.”
Etain just nodded. She seemed to be finding it hard to keep up a conversation. Ordo could smell Darman on her, which fascinated him: Darman seemed able to step beyond the community of brothers and not feel adrift, just as his Null brothers could. But Ordo found it distressing, and Fi seemed to as well.
Ordo wasn’t sure if he would ever trust a female, not after Chief Scientist Ko Sai first towered above him, gray and cold and unfeeling. He wondered if having a human mother would have made it easier.
Etain shut her eyes again. She shuddered.
“It’s not cold,” Ordo said.
“Are there Jedi working here?”
“Of course. Jedi make great clerks.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“It’s a definite no. Why do you ask?”
“I felt someone in the Force, very faintly.”
Fierfek. Zey? Jusik being helpful? “Close?”
“Gone now.”
She went back to silent contemplation of something beyond him.
“Is your PEP laser fully charged?”
“Yes, Ordo.”
“Very noisy and visible. Last resort.”
“As is a Verpine round.”
“I have the chamber loaded two and one,” Ordo said. “What?”
“Two marker projectiles between each live round, and one live round already up the spout, as Kal’buir so aptly puts it.”
“And you can-“
“Count? I do believe so.”
“I seem to offend you without meaning to. I realize you have an astonishing intellect.”
It wasn’t that his mind was so remarkable that seemed worth comment, but that hers and others’ were not. He felt the need to explain.
“In an emergency, it’s better that I’m able to fire a killing shot without needing to discharge two nonlethal rounds first.” He stared into her eyes: they were light green, flecked with amber. Except for Skirata’s, the only eyes so unlike his own that he had ever studied at that range were alien, and shortly before he killed their owner. “Anyway, I can execute a triple tap with a Verpine. So it’s academic:’
“Triple tap? I’ve heard Dar talk about double-“
“Three rounds in quick succession. Some species need a little more stopping power.”
“Oh.”
“The PEP laser will stun most humanoids.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Ordo simply tapped the Verpine under his jacket.
They waited. Maybe they really did look like a couple having a private moment. Randomly created people did strange things.
Staff in groups, ones, and twos began entering the building for the night shift.
Soon …
Movement behind the transparisteel doors made him focus and check his chrono: 1155. Staff sloping off early. “Stand by,” he said quietly.
Etain turned very slowly away from him in her seat, ready to open the speeder’s hatch and slide out.
Ten or eleven workers emerged. Ordo and Etain slipped from the speeder and feigned ambling around in conversation. There was still frequent pedestrian traffic around the center.
By 0005 the trickle of staff in and out had slowed, and there was still no sign of Vinna Jiss.
“She has to come out that entrance.”
“You’re sure-oh, okay, Ordo.”
They waited. He wondered how long the two of them would look inconspicuous.
And then he spotted the ginger wavy hair and the beige tunic he’d seen earlier. Jiss. He watched her turn along the path and walk down the ramp toward the walkways that connected the complex to the business district around it; then he made his move.