And the door opened. Etain flinched involuntarily, grasping her lightsaber two-handed. A scent hit her, a foul damp musk.
“Fierfek,” Skirata said. “You di’kut. We could have blown your head off.”
Niner, Ordo, Darman, and Fi made annoyed clicks and sighs and lowered their Deeces. Atin didn’t.
Vau walked in with two straining carryalls and a six-legged, loose-skinned shambles of pale gold short fur ambling behind him. So that was the strill. And the absence of malice and tension had been … ice-cold, calm, utterly detached Walon Vau.
“At’ika, lower your Deece,” Skirata said softly.
“If you say so, Sarge.” And although Atin obeyed, his steady stare at Vau was an eloquent loaded weapon.
“Come on in,” said Fi. “Ain’t nobody here but us clones.”
“You could have called ahead,” Skirata said.
Vau lowered the carryalls to the floor, and Ordo pounced on them. “Just challenging your security, like I ought to.”
“Well, either Delta and Jusik got instantly stupid or they let pass someone they knew, so don’t get too cocky. Anything you want to tell us?”
“I’ve shut down the safe house and Enacca has cleaned up.”
Etain listened intently to the language, spoken in the code of euphemism out of long habit. Cleaning up certainly meant removing bloodstains, because she’d seen them, but she had the feeling it was more than that.
“No further business with our two friends?” Skirata said.
“That’s the trouble with Coruscant,” Vau said. “High balconies are safety risks. At least that confirms our two guests weren’t Jedi, eh?” Vau found a seat, and the strill scrambled onto his lap: it took Etain a moment to work out what he meant, and the realization shocked her. “The other fortunate thing is that I was able to talk to Vinna Jiss’s supervisor at GAR logistics as her … landlord and complain that she had skipped owing me rent. The supervisor was sympathetic and said she was an unreliable employee.”
“So?” said Skirata. Omega had disappeared back to the rooms that led off the main one. Except Atin: Atin waited, a block of black hatred, and Ordo stacked the explosives.
“So at least we don’t have to worry about her being missed too badly.” Vau glanced at Atin, almost as if he was seeking a greeting, but got no reaction. “And she confirmed that there was one other person in logistics that she had to leave information for in an agreed place, a dead letter drop inside the GAR complex, whenever she could manage it. In a locker in the female ‘ freshers.”
“What? You’re kidding me.”
“I know. We spend millions on the latest ships but we’re stuffed by a simple security leak that wouldn’t baffle a Kitonak grocer.”
Etain felt Skirata generate a little dark vortex of rage. His face drained of color. “Why are they so shabla clueless?”
“Because they’re a bureaucracy, and they’re not the ones in the front line. Anyway, none of the traffic information is impossible to dig out by other routes. It’s just quick and easy-all wrapped up in one chip. Worth having because it saves them a lot of time, which means they don’t have many personnel. Small and opportunistic network, I reckon.”
Skirata was rubbing his face slowly with both hands, exasperated and weary. “So she didn’t know who collected the data, other than that they could use the female ‘freshers without attracting attention? Or what their schedule was?”
“If she had known, I can guarantee she would have told me.”
“I’ll bet.”
“So we need someone in there to flush that person out.”
“That’s me,” Ordo said, and went on making the thermal plastoid into neat piles. Etain had counted two hundred small rectangular packets so far. “All I have to do is withdraw the trooper who’s seconded to the transport division and step in.”
“And what happens to him?” Vau said.
“He stays here until I’m finished,” Ordo said. “You can make a commando of him in the meantime, Kal’buir”
“Well, this is going to be very cozy.” Vau rubbed the still’s back, and it shuddered with visible delight. “Because you have to find room for me, too.”
“Then the strill sleeps on the landing platform,” Skirata said.
“Then I do, too,” said Vau.
Fi emerged from the room he shared with Atin and stared at the animal. “We could always leave it downstairs in the bar as an air freshener.”
“One day, RC-eight-oh-one-five,” Vau said, smiling with unusual sincerity, “you might be very glad of Mird’s natural talents.”