The holochart gave no numbers of troops, but a little common sense would have told anyone who wanted to spend the time thinking through the obvious that they were thinly stretched. There were, Ordo knew, at least a million troops now in the field spread over hundreds of worlds: small forces on some, multiple battalions on others. It meant long supply chains, and those were inherently vulnerable. So … why didn’t the Separatist terror networks target them offworld? No ability. No suitable vessels or skills. Or … maybe the point was to intimidate the seat of galactic government after all.
Motive mattered. Motive gave you the capacity to think like the enemy, want what they wanted, and then snatch it from them.
And killing clone troopers-mainly troopers, if you didn’t count the unfortunate civilians who were also in the way-made the point that the Seps could come and go as they pleased.
Ordo took it personally. He drew on the memory of sharp, cold fear and focused hatred that he had learned on Kamino before a total stranger had stepped in front of him and saved his life.
We can trust nobody but our brothers and Kal’buir.
Over the comlink, he could still hear Niner’s exclamations of satisfaction. The six men and women tagged by Fi and Sev were dispersing all over Galactic City, leaving routes and stopping points that Niner and Boss were logging on a holochart that showed every skylane, quadrant, and building on Coruscant. Judging by their occasional descent into the rich Mandalorian invective that Kal ‘buir considered an important part of their continuing education, they were learning more than anyone had bargained for.
Ordo would evaluate it all when he returned, but the number of locations that the tagging had registered had now reached twenty; it was growing into something larger than a fourteen-man team might be able to handle.
Ordo wanted to tell them to concentrate on the clusters, the areas of most traffic, but it would have to wait. The strip cam had yielded nothing, except the fact that females of all species employed in the center seemed to spend a lot of time in the ‘freshers rearranging their appearance. Whoever had been used to collecting the data probably knew Vinna Jiss was gone now and was no doubt trying another route. He kept a careful eye on Supervisor Wennen because she seemed to be getting increasingly agitated as the day wore on. He could hear it in her voice. She didn’t like Guris. She was checking something: when he went to the ‘freshers, she was still on the same screen when he returned, scrolling up and down an inventory.
She was checking rifle shipments going back two or three months. If it’s you, Wennen, what is your motive?
He didn’t have to stop to read the screen over her shoulder. He could simply glance at it, focus, and walk back to his workstation to close his eyes discreetly and recall what he had seen.
Whatever errors the Kaminoans had made in their attempt to improve Jango Fett’s genome, the efforts had not been wasted.
Wennen looked up toward the doors. Her fine-boned face, while still aesthetically pleasing, suddenly froze into genuine anger and lost its prettiness.
“Jiss,” she said sourly. “You’d better have a good excuse this time.”
Ordo fought every instinct to jerk around and stare. He simply turned his head casually to focus on a sheet of flimsi to his right, and there she was: Vinna Jiss.
You’re dead.
“I’ve been unwell, Supervisor.”
But you’re dead. So who are you?
“Heard of comlinks? I even had your landlord calling me, complaining you’d skipped without paying rent.”
I know you’re dead because you fell a few thousand meters from a balcony after a chat with Walon Vau.
“Sorry, Supervisor.”
Wennen was all acid, lips compressed. “See me first thing in the morning. I’m off shift now.”
She shut down her workstation, grabbed her jacket, and made a move toward the doors. Then she paused and turned to Ordo.
“Corr, it’s sixteen-thirty,” she said. “Come on. Time to go. Nobody will thank you for sitting there all night. Want me to drop you off at the barracks?”
Jiss, either you’re dead or you’re an imposter. So who did Vau kill?
“Thank you, Supervisor.” Ordo logged off and replaced his helmet, suddenly glad of the chance to hide behind an anonymous white plastoid visor and stare horrified at the face of a dead woman who seemed to be doing pretty well for a corpse. “I’m … I’m going to meet some comrades from the Forty-first. Could you drop me off at the first taxi platform in the entertainment sector, please?”
“I’m glad you’re taking the opportunity to relax, Corr.” She seemed genuinely pleased. “You deserve it.”