[Republic Commando] - 03(135)

“Thanks, Walon,” Skirata said. “I might take a detour to Aargau, actually…” His bank was on Aargau. Business, then. That was fine. Skirata strapped himself into the third cockpit seat so Ordo could take the copilot’s position with Mereel at the helm. Ordo was now talking directly to Leveler, whose comm officer seemed to think he was calling from Arca Barracks on Coruscant. A code scrambler was a wonderful thing.

Vau released the mooring lines and gave Skirata a mock salute from the pontoon, and Mereel took Aay’han out past the breakwater, accelerating her gradually toward the speed at which she’d rise on floats and then lift clear of the water. Skirata opened his comlink and keyed in Jusik’s code. “We’re out of here, Bard’ika. Thanks.”

“Thank you for keeping me informed,”’ Jusik said stiffly. So he had an audience: Delta must have been with him. “Is everything all right?”

“No. But it will be.”

“Niner informed me about Fi.”

“Ordo’s on the case. Don’t worry. And you don’t have to worry about Ko Sai any longer, either.”

“Okay…”

“Call me when you can talk freely. We’re off to Mandalore.”

Jusik was a good lad, Skirata reflected. He’d been good right from the start. They were lucky to find a few aruetiise with that kind of loyalty.

Aay’han took off in a storm of spray, lifting into the night sky. As she passed above the island that had once housed Ko Sai’s base in its bowels, Skirata checked the sensors and couldn’t help but notice that there was now an area of subsidence on the sports field, a shallow bowl about a hundred meters across. He could even see it; the shadow created by the illumigrids made it look like a big black lake.

“P for plenty,” Skirata said. “I think we brought the ceiling down.”

Mereel checked for himself. “Oops.”

“You’re taking this pretty well.” Skirata now worried what was happening behind Mereel’s cocky veneer, because he’d badly underestimated what was going on inside Ordo.

“There’s always a bright side,” said Mereel. “One day, we’ll look back on all this and laugh.”

Skirata doubted it. But one thing, at least, was settled: he didn’t have to hunt for Ko Sai any longer.

He just had to work out what he was going to do with her.



Tropix island, Dorumaa, 479 days after Geonosis

“So this is how the other half live,” Sev said.

Delta Squad, clad in the dull but all-encompassing coveralls of a utilities maintenance crew, tried to look routine as they made their way along the shoreline collecting garbage. There wasn’t a lot, but the management liked the white sand to look pristine before the hotel guests emerged after breakfast. Some poor di’kut was even combing it with a big rake.

“I’m glad I’m in this half, then,” Boss said. “The novelty of cleaning up after civvies would wear off fast.”

“I meant the lounging-around-in-the-sun bit.”

“Overrated.” Fixer speared a scrap of flimsi wrapping with a special sharpened pole designed for doing just that, although Sev could think of much better uses for it. It was the first enemy contact Fixer had had for a while. Sev considered requesting a transfer to the infantry, where they seemed to be getting more droid action. “Ruins your skin. Gives you blisters. You have to coat yourself in slimy sun filter to stop it from killing you in the end.”

Scorch stood back and let him kill another scrap of litter. “So how long have you been promoting the benefits of a vacation on Tropix?”

“Look, any job would be better than mine, because right now I feel I’m wasting my time.” Fixer shoved his finger hard in his ear, adjusting the hidden comlink bead. “This is boring. Even the police comlink channel is tedious. Drunks, lost valuables, and collisions between rental speeders.”

Jusik had finally let them loose on the island itself. Fixer and Boss weren’t happy about the delay, but the Jedi had a point: it was hard to blend in here in a suit of Katarn armor, and they didn’t have what he called Omega Squad’s social skills. Scorch had helped him liberate a few maintenance crew uniforms overnight, a task so easy it was almost an insult to their skills at getting into places they shouldn’t have been. As for the locks-he could have busted them open just by scowling at them. It was pathetic. It was a bummer about Fi, though. Sev didn’t like the thought of being in a coma, just in case it was one of those conscious ones where you knew what was going on around you but you couldn’t respond. Whatever happened to him, he decided, would be fast and final; no hanging around. At one point he thought of talking it through with the rest of the squad, but they’d noted Fi’s state and then shut it out of conversation, so Sev knew they were as scared as he was.