[Republic Commando] - 03(40)

“Securing the sho’sen.” Ordo didn’t want to spell out submarine in front of strangers. Mando ‘a was almost unknown among aruetiise so it was a discreet code to use. “Vau and Mird are standing guard.”

“Don’t get agitated, but Bard’ika is planning to join us later.”

Ordo reserved the right to a little anxiety about General Jusik, who could swing in moments from a Jedi with ageless wisdom to a daredevil lunatic like Mereel. “Why?”

“Something major he wants to discuss that he doesn’t want to commit to voice traffic.”

“He’s as crazy as you. Zey’s going to catch him one day.” Ordo wondered for a moment if it was news of Etain and her pregnancy, but there were ways of passing that on discreetly without the need to meet face-to-face. He indicated the droid with a jab of his thumb. “Thought you’d seen enough tinnies for one lifetime.”

“Just having a fascinating discourse about the expansion in the leisure economy with my colleagues here, who are …”

“Teekay-zero,” said the droid sitting to Mereel’s left. He looked like a taller, armored version of an R2 astromech. “And my esteemed mechanic and agent, Gaib.”

“Always a pleasure,” said Gaib, not looking up from his datapad. “But remember that without me, he’s just fancy scrap.”

Ordo switched over to his helmet comlink. Life was so much easier with a buy’ce. The apparent silence that followed for outsiders looked like two Mandos waiting for a comrade to show and, in their uncommunicative Mandalorian way, not having much to discuss by way of art and philosophy. The unheard reality on the private comlink was something else entirely.

“Okay, Mer’ika, why move the RV point to here, and what are you playing at with the tourists?”

Mereel turned his head as if he was staring at the bar and ignoring his brother. “The tinnie and his sidekick specialize in stolen industrial data and kit. High-tech bounty hunters. They were asked to source … I love that word, don’t you? … source … like procure … so flexible… anyway, they were asked to find someone who’d supply untraceable laboratory equipment to beat the cloning ban. Dry-lining supplies, vats, clean room systems, plus specialist droids to fit it all, paid in cash credits and no records.”

“Ko Sai?”

“I reckon.”

“Where?”

“Dorumaa, tropical pleasure palace of the Mid Rim.” Ordo consulted his planetary database as it scrolled down his HUD. “Water. Water, everywhere …”

“Oceans, almost all of which are pretty well unexplored. And likely to stay that way for some time, because of the lovable marine life that was revived from,the ice sheet when they terraformed the place. Tropical vacations. No other industry. But that’s where the illegal lab stuff was heading.”

“She’s setting up a new research center. Who’s funding it?”

“Don’t know yet. Okay, let’s work through it. Battle of Kamino-Separatist forces spring her. She’s already stripped her critical data off the Tipoca mainframe, some of which I could reconstruct from the copy I took the other week, so she was expecting to leave. Seps then take her to Neimoidia-she stiffs them, does a runner, and ends up on Vaynai.” Mereel folded his arms and looked the other way, doing a good mime of exasperated boredom. “From Vaynai, she loops back into Sep space, last place they’d expect her to run, and heads for the Cularin system, specifically Dorumaa.”

“Evidence?”

“My tinnie chum got the stuff delivered to the freight port here. Tinnie, being fond of a little insurance just in case the client skips without paying, checks out the flight plan and, with a couple of transfers en route, it all ends up on Dorumaa.”

“So why is he telling you?”

“He was sourcing items for me. Extra firepower and go-faster stripes for the submersible.”

“You’ve got a dozen or more lowlifes you could ask for hardware.”

Mereel was smiling. Ordo could hear it in his voice. “Not ones that also show up doing business with Arkania.”

Ordo had to admire Mereel’s ability to sift data. The risk-taking genes had expressed themselves even more in him than the rest of them, but he had a surprising patient tenacity once he’d latched on to the scent. He could give Mird a run for its money.

“So we need to beat a location out of someone.”

“Once I find the pilot who delivered the consignments. Nobody’s talking. I don’t care how tight-lipped folks are, somebody always talks, sooner or later. One detail, one word-something always slips.”