[Republic Commando] - 02(129)

“I can see Perrive. Yes, he’s alone. He’s in front of the doors to the balcony-now that’s arrogant, my friend. Think nobody can see you, eh? Etain, want to take a look?”

Vau handed her the Verpine. She took it nervously, hearing Skirata’s constant admonition to take care of the weapon, and was surprised how light and harmless it felt. She peered down the scope and felt Vau reach out and flick something on the optic. A different image appeared in the eyepiece, slightly pink-tinted, of a man rummaging through a desk and sticking datachips into his ‘pad, activating them, and then extracting and discarding them. A pale blob of light shimmered from his chest and then from his back as he turned.

“What can you see?”

“He’s loading data,” Etain said.

“He’s shredding someone’s files. Told you so.”

“What’s the white light? The EM emissions from the Dust?”

“Correct.”

Etain handed back the rifle. “That datapad is going to contain some interesting material. How do we get hold of it?”

“The old-fashioned way.” Vau sounded as if he’d smiled. It was hard to tell under the helmet. “Let’s get him to come to the balcony.”

“I’m not sure I can influence his mind at this range … or at all.”

“No need, my dear.” Vau folded a cloth one-handed and placed it under the stock of the Verpine at the point where it touched his armored shoulder. “I hate a standing shot without something to lean against, but I’m not as sure-footed as Mird so I’m not going to attempt to kneel.” He leaned back slightly against the wall at his back. “But this Verpine is beautiful.” He rested his firing hand on his raised forearm. “It’s almost a handgun.”

“Just tell me what you’re going to do.”

“Make a noise on his balcony so he steps outside.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll have to go in and get him the hard way.”

“But if you-“

“Let’s get him outside if we can.” Vau paused to let an airspeeder pass. The narrow skylane was almost deserted. “Most armies I ended up serving had no notion of advance planning. I got to be very good at unorthodox solutions.”

Etain couldn’t help but feel the patterns in the Force right then. Being pregnant seemed to have enhanced her sensitivity to the living Force by an order of magnitude. Vau felt like a pool of utter cold calm, almost a Jedi Master’s footprint in the Force. The strill felt … alien. It had an unfathomable glittering intelligence and a wild, joyful heart swirling within it. Had it not been for Vau’s rifle and the krill’s savage teeth, the pair might have felt like a peaceful man and his happy child.

She felt something else, as she did constantly now: the vivid, complex pattern of her unborn child.

It’s a boy.

I’m standing on a ledge with thousands of meters of nothing below me. And I am not afraid.

She stopped herself from reaching out to Darman in the Force. It might distract him at a critical moment. She simply felt that he was safe and confident, and that was enough.

“Could you choke him using the Force?” Vau said quietly.

“What?”

“Just asking. Very handy.”

“I was never trained to do that.”

“Pity. All those fine combat skills wasted.”

Vau exhaled audibly and paused. There was the slightest of movements in her peripheral vision as he squeezed the trigger, and a small snakkk echoed as a puff of vaporized stone billowed briefly off the corner of the apartment wall.

“Ahh … ,” Vau said. The rifle’s scope was still pressed to the eye slit in his black helmet. He looked like the very image of death. Much as Etain had grown to find that armor reassuring, it made it no less intimidating. “Now, this is not a man used to avoiding professional assassins. Watch carefully and tell me what you feel.”

Perrive paused at the transparisteel doors leading onto the balcony and shoved the datapad inside his tunic. Then he took out his blaster. He opened the doors by a meter, no more, and stood looking around, blaster raised, one foot still inside the apartment, one on the balcony itself.

Etain heard Vau exhale and then Perrive’s head jerked backward with a brief plume of dark blood as if he had been punched by an invisible fist. He fell, arms thrown wide.

Dead. Gone. Whatever had been Perrive was now gone from the Force: no pain, no surprise, and suddenly not there.

Mird the strill was staring up at its master, unblinking, tail thrashing the ledge in enthusiasm. It began making little whimpering noises deep in its throat.

“I must treat myself to one of these,” Vau said, still all complete calm and satisfaction, gazing at the Verpine rifle. “Outstanding craftspeople, those little insectoids.”