[Republic Commando] - 03(136)

“I know that Jedi sense stuff,” Boss said carefully, “and that generals are privy to intel we don’t get, but I get the feeling Bard’ika isn’t leveling with us.”

“Maybe he’s too embarrassed to tell us he brought us all this way to buy us a Neuvian ice sundae,” said Scorch. “Part of this new management drive to make us feel valued.”

“Does Zey know he’s having an identity crisis?” Boss asked.

“Who says he is?”

“Aw, c’mon … the durasteel-undenvear syndrome?”

“So he likes Mandalorian stuff,” Scorch said. “Maybe it’s comforting for guys who aren’t allowed to have violent feelings. He can act out a bit.”

“He’s got a lightsaber. He acts out violence just fine with that.”

Sev didn’t have a Jedi’s Force radar but he certainly had a trooper’s sixth sense for an officer approaching. Just as he looked up from the blinding white sand, feeling uneasy, he saw Jusik striding down the boardwalk in what Sev thought of as his “half Jedi,” the anonymous white tunic and pants that they all wore under the layers of robes.

“Why don’t you put your theory to him, then, Dr. Scorch?” said Sev. “Go on, ask him.”

“Yeah, I always wondered where he keeps his lightsaber when he dresses like that.”

“Result,” Fixer muttered.

Sev prodded him with the litter pole. “What?”

“Police channel chat.” This was as near as Fixer ever got to excited. “Folk were calling in saying they’d heard a mystery explosion, but no location. Now they’ve had a report of a sports field subsiding on the next island.”

“As in underground explosion?”

“Maybe. Rescue Service is going over to check it out.”

Jusik caught up with them. “I’ve rented a fishing vessel so we can move our ops away from prying eyes. How’s the maintenance business?”

“Explosive,” said Scorch. “Fixer says the locals reported a big bang followed by a hole in the ground not far from here. And as this isn’t a big-bang kind of planet, we might as well check out the lead.”

“Good idea,” said Jusik.

“Sir, are you okay?”

“My apologies, Scorch. My mind’s not wholly on the job. If anyone would like an update on Fi’s condition, let me know.” He looked around him, almost as if he’d heard something and was trying to work out where it was coming from, but it was just one of his mannerisms. “No? Okay, let’s take a look at this hole in the ground.”

Fixer was still eavesdropping on the police comlink frequencies. “What cover are we going to use?”

“No need. Overfly it in the TIV, get a few coordinates out of it, then work out a way of assessing the point of the explosion.”

“Might not be anything to do with Ko Sai, of course.”

“Want to skip it?”

“No sir. But maybe the Twi’lek was decoying us.” Jusik picked up a scrap of litter, examined it, and dropped it in the collecting sack that Fixer was carrying. “What makes you say that? He ran for his life pretty convincingly.” Boss cut in. “Because we’ve turned up nothing, sir, except the traffic manager here who remembers someone hiring a utility barge for a delivery offshore, and then it was found drifting minus the employee.”

“And nobody went looking for him.”

“When they say don’t go beyond the safety limits, they mean it. They have no idea what’s lurking under the surface, and they’re not too keen to find out.”

Jusik shrugged. “Just as well we’re made of sterner stuff. What a shabby attitude toward employee welfare.”

Sev had seen Jusik hunting targets before, and he behaved like a man with a mission: single-minded, resourceful, and tenacious. On Coruscant, he’d even worried Sev with his wildly risky tactics. Now he was behaving differently. The fire had gone out of him. It was as if he didn’t care if he found Ko Sai or not.

It could have been that he didn’t want to find her, and that worried Sev for all kinds of different reasons. But maybe it was, as he said, because he was preoccupied by Fi. That was worrying in its own way, because an officer who was distracted when one man out of his commando group of five hundred was wounded really didn’t have what it took. “Yes sir,” Sev said.

The aerial view of the island sports resort to the south of Tropix-Action World, a name Sev found hilarious given its extensive array of visitor safety measures-was educational. Yes, it was an instant lake all right, minus the water. From the TIV, he could see how the ground had collapsed beneath the grass without breaking up much of the surface. Something underneath had caved in.