[Republic Commando] - 02(14)

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 well: 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.

“Fifteen dead.” Skirata clearly didn’t care about civilian casualties, traffic disruption, or structural damage. He gestured toward a large fragment of white leg armor in the rubble of what had been a security post. “I’m going to rip some chakaar’s guts out for this.”

“When we find them, I’ll make sure you’re first in line,” Obrim said.

There wasn’t a lot any of them could do at that moment except to allow the largely Sullustan scenes-of-crime team to do their work. Skirata, chewing vigorously on that bittersweet ruik root that he’d recently taken a liking to, stood with his fists in his jacket pockets, watching Jusik stepping delicately between chunks of debris. The Jedi occasionally stopped to close his eyes and stand completely motionless.

Skirata’s expression was one of cold appraisal. “He’s a good kid.”

Ordo nodded. “Do you want me to look after him?”

“Yes, but not at the expense of your own safety.”