[Republic Commando] - 03(147)

“Anyone can learn to tie a Mandalorian knot if they want to leave a message for the trusting saying, It’s okay, she’s dead, the Mandalorians got her… can’t they?”

Jusik looked unmoved except for a slight twitch in his jaw muscles. Sev was at the right angle to see it.

“They could, sir,” Jusik said at last. “But we do derive some certainty from the Force, do we not?”

“We do, but Chancellor Palpatine doesn’t deal in Force certainty, or in the Force at all. He wants her, preferably alive, but he’ll settle-reluctantly, although I shall no doubt feel his reluctance-for definitive proof of death. And I don’t mean some half-wit Twi’lek saying he was pretty sure he dumped her body but he can’t remember where.” Sev felt the Force that time, all right, and it was probably a largely spent shock wave compared with the one that Zey had to be getting from above. Jusik’s calm almost deserted him, and he blinked a few times. “Find me something solid.”

“It means excavating.”

“Then excavate.”

“But if she surfaces again, she’ll show her hand when she starts re-equipping a laboratory. She can’t work with a datapad and a stylus alone.”

“Unless she goes to work illegally for Arkanian Micro or any of the other clonemasters. Does she have any research that Tipoca City isn’t privy to, do you think?”

“I have no idea.”

Zey turned to Boss. “Three-Eight, do you regard the corpse you found as significant?”

“Just the nature of the knot, sir. Especially as it was a long shot that we would find the location based on what the Twi’lek told us. If anyone signposted it, they were subtle.”

“They might have known you weren’t stupid.” Wow, the old man was in a real mood today. “No option but to go back to the last good contact and start over. Although I don’t like the idea of digging holes under sports fields deep in enemy territory on the off chance there might be a squashed Kaminoan under the rubble, that’s all we’ve got. Perhaps I should have brought Skirata into the loop on this after all.”

It didn’t matter why he said it: he might have meant it benignly, or sincerely, or spitefully. But the end result was the same. It was a slap across the face for all of them. Jusik might have taken that as part of the learning curve of being a baby general, but Delta didn’t fail. Dread crept through Sev like the onset of a strained muscle. At least they weren’t yet at the stage where Vau had to find out that they couldn’t cut it.

No. That I couldn’t cut it.

“Leave it with us, sir.” Jusik gave every impression of being okay about the dressing-down-Jedi never shouted or swore, although they did have a savage line in humiliating understatement-but he had to be bruised now. He’d already told them more than once that he was never going to make the Jedi Council. He didn’t strike Sev as the type of man who wanted that kind of position anyway. “Is there a deadline on this?”

“Yesterday, at the latest,” said Zey. “I can repeat the explanation from the top if you like.”

“No need, sir. Resources?”

“You learned your trade from Skirata, young man. Whatever it takes.” He paused. “If you really feel you’re not getting anywhere, I might countenance investigating the Mandalorian angle via him or Vau.”

Jusik managed to return some verbal fire. “They won’t like finding out that they weren’t trusted to know about this to start with, sir.”

Zey just raised an eyebrow.

“Do it now,” he said. “I want to be able to tell Palpatine that you’re still out there on the case, and not lie. I haven’t even told him where you were. Just in case he gets other ideas.”

“Yes sir.”

Jusik dismissed himself and beckoned to the squad to fol-low. They trooped after him in silence.

“We let you down, sir,” Boss said. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry, Boss, it’s not your fault.” Jusik’s comlink bleeped for attention and he looked down at the display, pausing for a moment as if it was either baffling or important. “General Zey was just expressing his frustration. It’s a job best suited to Intel, and he knows it. They should do the tracking and call you in when they need some serious soldiering done. Look, can you give me half an hour? I have to take care of something before we go.”

It sounded like Jusik was saying they were only good for the brute-force end of the job. But maybe he’d just picked up on the fact that the squad wanted to be out on the front line. “We’ll have the TIV ready on the landing pad in thirty standard minutes, sir.” Boss knew how to give Jusik a deadline in the kindest way. “And an appropriate wardrobe.”