Delta hung back. Omega didn’t. Then Delta appeared to remember that fill yer boots meant “eat your fill.” Fi peeled bright green wrapping from something that smelled of sour fruits and found it to be frozen and covered in something appetizingly crunchy.
But Etain looked tired. Jusik was watching her warily as if something unspoken was going on between them. Jedi could do that kind of thing, just like soldiers on helmet comlinks, silent to the outside world. Then Etain muttered something about having a hot soak in the ‘freshers and disappeared into the next room.
“We have a drop location,” Skirata said. “And a few thousand or so clone troopers on leave for a few weeks thanks to our totally unexpected friend Mar Rugeyan.”
“Mmm, crushed nuts,” Fi said, identifying the topping on the ice. “That was very helpful of him.”
They all stopped in midcrunch. Fi noted Jusik wasn’t eating, just watching the sergeant with a rapt expression. The young general had a very bad dose of the Skiratas. As diseases went, it was one of the best to catch.
“So do we get to drop them, or do we have to do the boring thing and let them stroll off?” Boss asked. Niner gave him one of his funny looks, the kind that said he thought a bit of quiet contemplation was called for. Niner and Boss didn’t see their newly reduced roles in quite the same way: Niner liked to lead by being certain, and Boss seemed to like being first. “This is a tracking job, right?”
“Vau made you into very impatient boys,” Skirata said. “Yes, this is where it gets boring. And you know what? You won’t be any less dead if you get it wrong.” He picked up some shuura fruits and lobbed one each to the Delta team. “And I really hope Vau schooled you well in this, because I’ll be pretty hacked off if you get trigger-happy and blow this op.”
Boss looked hurt. Fi didn’t think Delta ran to such delicate emotions. “We’re pros, Sarge. We know how to do this.”
“What did I tell you?”
“Sorry. Kal. It’s just that we haven’t even seen the enemy yet.”
“Welcome to anti-terror ops, hotshot. They aren’t droids. They don’t line up and march at you. Didn’t you listen to any of my lectures?”
“Well-“
“They can kill you and not even be on the planet when it happens. But you can track and kill them the same way. This is about patience and attention to detail.”
“Delta’s really good at that, so I hear,” Fi said. Sev gave him that blank cold stare. It simply provoked Fi all the more. “That’s why they do their op planning with finger paints.”
Skirata lobbed a rolled-up ball of flimsi at Fi and it hit him in the ear-hard. “Okay, Ordo is going to score some credible explosives over the next few days, because that’s going to be handy if we need to infiltrate the cells. And we’ll start surveillance of the drop point now because we don’t have a time window when the explosives were due to be picked up. Four shifts-Fi and Sev as Red Watch, relieved by Dar and Boss as Blue Watch, relieved by Niner and Scorch as Green Watch.”
Fi noted Atin’s process of elimination. He looked as if he’d been doused in cold water. Fi suspected he’d wanted to be paired with Sev, and for all the wrong reasons.
“That leaves you and Fixer as White Watch, so you stay focused,” Skirata said, giving Atin a friendly prod in the chest. He’d spotted it, too. But then, Skirata spotted everything. “One watch on observation, one on intel collation, and two stood down.”
“What about everyone else?”
“Ordo’s going undercover to find our mole, and Bardan and Etain will join the normal shift rotations until we need to break into a new phase. If needed, Vau and Enacca will turn to as well, and give us a hand.”
Jusik-looking convincingly unsavory in ordinary clothing and with his hair unbound-checked his snazzy S-5 blaster. Yes, Zey would go nuts when he saw the bill for this op. “Can we use the Force, Kal?”
“‘Course you can, Bard’ika. As long as nobody notices. Or as long as you don’t leave witnesses, anyway. Same goes for lightsabers. No witnesses. Might look a bit obvious.”
“When do we start?” Boss asked.
Skirata looked at his chrono. “Three hours. Time to eat, I think.”
Sev elbowed Fi, a little too hard to be friendly but not hard enough to start a fight. “So, you and me. The brains and the mouth. Don’t get me killed.”
“I’m slumming it. I usually work with ARC captains.” Watching normal people leading normal lives? I’d rather charge a droid line. What happened to my certainty? Do the others feel like this? “But there’s a war on, so sacrifices have to be made.”