"Three of them. One young, two older, judging by the voices-'cos they have helmets like you, don't they?-and they were wearing-"
Jusik cut in, suddenly very intent on the question. "Green armor. They wore dark green armor, didn't they?"
Leb blinked. "Yeah." He defocused for a moment as if he was trying to visualize something. "Yeah, they wore dark green. How did you know?"
"A hunch," Jusik said. Sev was almost pushed aside now. Whatever Jusik had on his mind, whatever intel he had, he hadn't shared it with them. He'd busted a gut to get here, though. "I can work out who they are. Now tell me where you took the equipment."
"Dorumaa."
Jusik leaned back as if he had his answer, as if the identity of whoever else had shaken down Leb mattered more to him than the delivery destination-Ko Sai's likely location. Sev was distracted by that, trying to construct a scenario in which that information mattered more.
"You want to pin that down?" Boss asked, and indicated Sev. "Or do I let my colleague ask you?"
"Tropix island resort." Leb sounded fluent, as if he'd re-hearsed it, or at least given the same answers before. "You want the coordinates? Here they are." He put his hand inside his tunic and froze. "Hey, it's just a datapad... take it easy..."
Sev realized he must have looked as if he was going to hit him. He wondered how he managed to give the impression of being more violent than his brothers, because any armored commando with a Deece looked like bad news. He wasn't trying to act like a psycho, whatever buildup Boss gave him, but folks didn't feel comfortable sharing a space with him, and whatever he intended didn't seem to affect that.
"I'll take the data," Jusik said quietly. He held his hand out for Leb's datapad, tapped the controls, and keyed something into his own device. Then he handed it back.
"Hey!" Leb stared at his datapad in horror. "You erased it!"
"I'm so clumsy," Jusik said. "Come on. Let's see you safely on your way, shall we?"
"But my data..."
Jusik crooked his finger at Sev to accompany him, and they bundled Leb out of the TIV so fast that he almost fell out of the hatch. The two of them held on to an arm each and steered him toward his freighter.
"Don't I get some creds for my trouble?" Leb said.
Jusik slapped something into his palm. "Not just that, citizen, I'll make the problem disappear, too." He stared into the Twi'lek's face and put his hand flat on his chest for a moment. "In a few minutes, things will be back to normal for you. Now off you go."
Leb stood at the foot of the ladder up to his cockpit and seemed to be contemplating the contents of his palm as Jusik and Sev jogged back to the TIY There was a small anonymous-looking shuttle a little distance from it, one that Sev had seen Jusik use before.
"What did you give him, sir?" Sev asked.
"A few hundred creds and a spot of amnesia."
"What?"
"I mind-rubbed him."
"Oh, you can do that, too, can you?"
"No point deleting the records on his datapad if he re-members them and remembers us."
There was a low rumble behind them. Sev turned to see Leb's ship powering up, driving clouds of dust and grit into the air with the downdraft of its thrusters.
"But whoever's after Ko Sai can still find him, except he won't be able to give them an answer this time, so how does that solve his problem?"
"I didn't say it would solve his," Jusik said. "But it certainly solves some of ours."
It wasn't very Jedi of him, but then maybe Sev didn't fully understand their beliefs. "What about those Mandalorians? You sounded like you knew something."
Jusik shrugged and opened the hatch on his shuttle with a gesture of his hand. It might have been some Force trick or simply a remote control. "Let's just say Ko Sai's in demand."
"But who are they?"
"Competition. I'll catch up with you later."
Sev accepted need-to-know even if it annoyed him. He watched Jusik disappear into the shuttle and rejoined Delta in the TIV, trying to work out what he felt about Mandalorians, and whether they were all like him.
"The general's scrambled the Twi'lek's brains," he said, slumping into a seat and fastening his restraining belt for takeoff. "So he isn't going to be discussing his travel arrangements with anyone else, at least."
Boss tutted in annoyance. "We should have asked him for a bit more detail about where he did the drop. But Jusik seemed really keen to get rid of him."
"Well, he knows something we don't."
Nobody said it, but Sev knew they were thinking it. Mandalorians. It was always sobering to run into them-or the mention of them-and find they were on the Separatists' side, or on no side at all, but not the Republic's allies. Like most of the commandos, Delta Squad had been raised and trained by Mandalorian sergeants; men like Walon Vau had done what generations of Mando fathers had done, raising their sons to be self-sufficient warriors, passing on a Mandalorian culture that made strong, tight-knit armies.
Yeah, but there s Mando, and there s Mando. Is that me? Is that who I really am? And how do real Mandos see us?
Omega were very Mando now. All Skirata's squads were; he was a real hard-liner, old Kal, all tradition, emotional sentimentality, and-if anyone got in his way-complete no-holds-barred violence. Sometimes Sev preferred Vau's cold distance, because it was for their own good. But there were times he envied Omega; Vau said Skirata was too soft and made weak soldiers, but all Sev saw was someone he didn't have to be afraid of and who would let him make mistakes.
Too late to think about that now.
"Okay, Dorumaa it is," said Boss. "Hope you packed the swimwear, Fixer . .."
Tropix island resort, Dorumaa, Cularin system, 478 days after Geonosis Tropix was a manufactured paradise with every facility a sun-seeking visitor might want, and as far from Skirata's idea of bliss as he could imagine.
It was all bright colors, noise, and heat. Lulari trees imported from Hikil tinkled like wind chimes in the breeze, and their heady scent was pungent enough to give him the start of a headache. Mird bolted along the shell-paved beachfront path ahead of Vau, whipping its tail and whimpering with excitement as it picked up strange new scents.
It was a Separatist planet, at least as far as the Cularin system was Sep-loyal. Skirata felt everywhere was enemy territory regardless of whether it was red, blue, or yellow on the charts, and didn't let the stereotyped idyll weaken his guard.
"Well, this is classy," he said. Beings of various species lounged on a white sand beach lapped by a turquoise sea so vividly blue that it could have been dyed. Twi'lek waitresses whose skin almost matched it wandered among the vacation-ers with trays of drinks. Droids trundled between, raking sand and somehow managing to leave no tracks behind them. "Imagine being stuck here for two weeks. What do you reckon, Mer'ika?"
Mereel shrugged. Out of armor, in a plain white shirt and beige pants, he suddenly looked so ordinary-so civilian- that Skirata could only think of all the routine things he was denied.
"I could probably find something to occupy me," Mereel said. "Do you two realize how much you look like glitterstim dealers?"
Vau looked back over his shoulder, a rather splendid pearl-inlaid blaster shimmering in his holster. "I'm going for the casual but menacing look. Glad I pulled it off..."
"It's the Arakyd special, Walon. Says more about you than credits ever can." The gangster look was less conspicuous here than full Mandalorian armor. The idea was to look like they'd come for sportfishing so that submerging Aay'han offshore didn't attract the wrong sort of interest. "Looks rather expensive."
"Another bauble from the Vau deposit box. My great-grandfather is said to have shot a servant with it for serving his caf too hot."
Skirata almost went for the bait. "You're just saying that to make me mad, aren't you?"
Vau's expression was unreadable. "You know I'd never do such a thing."
Mereel put a restraining hand on Skirata's shoulder as he overtook him. The terrible thing about Vau and his family was that it was perfectly possible. Instead, Skirata tried to concentrate on the inexplicably generous Vau, the man who'd just given him millions for the frankly sentimental and unselfish purpose of rescuing clones, rather than the sadistic martinet who'd nearly killed Atin to toughen him up.
"Udesii," Mereel muttered. "Take it easy, Kal'buir"
Skirata did his best. He took a deep breath as he walked into the lobby of the resort's huge hotel complex and focused on being a glitterstim baron on a short break. He was a non-descript, short, gray-haired, middle-aged man who could pass unnoticed as a vagrant in the right clothes, or bring a room to a halt simply by walking with the right degree of swagger.
Today he could play a prince. He had a fortune in the safe on board Aay'han, so thinking like the idle and disreputable rich was easy. He was both.
A tall female Rek looked down at him. Skirata had seen them working as bounty hunters-their ultrathin whip-like bodies came in handy for accessing awkward locations-but it was a surprise to come across one in the hospitality business.
This one didn't appear to have a sense of humor. He decided to skip the diet jokes.
"Do we need a permit for angling here, ma'am?" Skirata asked innocently. "We've come for the rifi fishing."
"Yes," she said, not exactly personifying hospitable. She fixed him with a disturbing purple eye. "Are you guests?"
"No, we have a marine vessel moored here."
"Well, there'll be a fee for berthing. Do you wish to hire tackle, too?"
"Oh, we've come very well prepared, thanks ..."
"And you'll have to sign a waiver, because Tropix Resorts cannot be held responsible for any death, injury, damage, or other untoward incident caused by, or relating to, hunting, fishing, or exploration in any area more than ten meters off-shore, or beyond a depth of fifty meters..."
Skirata smiled indulgently, waste of time though it was, and took out a stylus. "We're used to taking risks, ma'am. Where do I sign?"
"How long will this permit need to cover?"
How long to find the hiding hole that Ko Sai had created for herself? Maybe hours. Maybe days. If they were unlucky, weeks, and when they found it there was always a chance that the aiwha-bait would have moved on again.
"Give me a week's pass," Skirata said, slapping his credit chip on the desk. "If we find we have . . . more time to kill, I'll extend it."
The Rek checked the chip in her scanner. "Thank you, Master Nessin." Skirata flinched at the bogus ID. "I must ad-vise caution if you fish beyond the five-hundred-meter limits. We do have people go missing from time to time when they ignore the warnings. But that's part of the appeal for many anglers and divers who come here."
Vau did his icy I-know-something-you-don't smile. "Sport-fishing isn't sport unless you run the risk of being caught yourself, is it?"
"There's always relaxing on the beach," said the Rek. "Or a pleasant walk around the harbor."
She seemed to have classed them as two old guys trying to rediscover their youth through destructive machismo, maybe with Mereel as the fit young minder who could haul them out of trouble. It was perfect: whoever Ko Sai had as a contact here-and she'd need one, if only to get hold of supplies- wouldn't be tipped off to the fact that Mandalorian bounty hunters were in town.
Aay'han didn't look too conspicuous on one of the pontoons that stretched out into the azure water. Most of the vessels alongside showed no signs of ever having slipped their moorings, but there were a few more rugged craft that were clearly from offworld. Skirata took out his datapad and aimed the scanner discreetly in their direction to check the passive transponders, just in case. He found no registrations that worried him.
"You have to hand it to the investment group here," he said as they tried to look casual. "They take a disaster and turn it into a USP."
"You're so crass," Vau muttered.
"What's a USP?" Mereel asked.
"Unique selling point, son. As in, they made a complete shu'shuk when they terraformed the place, not knowing just what kind of wildlife was in the ice when they thawed the planet. There are some real nasties lurking underwater, but instead of saying, Ooh, that's too dangerous, let s scrub the resort idea, the tourist board touts it as an opportunity for wild adventure. I have to respect that kind of resilience in business.''
Mereel smiled to himself. "Until the lawsuits come rolling in."
"Just operating costs," Skirata said. "Overheads."
The three men climbed onto Aay'han and sat on a flat section of her casing, backs resting against the curve of the port cargo bay, looking out to sea. Mird sat with its nose pointing into the wind, sniffing happily. Skirata didn't know a lot about sport angling, although he could manage to catch fish if he ever had to, and he hoped there wasn't some giveaway sign of a real angler that was conspicuously missing. If push came to shove, he could always play the stim baron on his first fishing trip.
"The aiwha-bait has to have a resupply route," he said. "She can't just go to ground here and have no contact with anyone. How does she get her food? She's not the kind that lives off the land. She's used to having minions."
"Sea," said Mereel.
"What?"
"Live off the sea, not the land."
"Well, Kaminoan discipline or not, she has to eat some-thing."
"Let's do a little exploring," said Vau. "We have the chart. Oya, Mird!"
Mird stood up, paws slipping on the smooth hull, and looked around frantically at the command to hunt. The strill couldn't sense any prey. Vau leaned over and ruffled its loose folds of gold fur, pointing at the water. Strills could fly and glide, but swimming wasn't their forte. Mird rumbled with disappointed frustration.
" 'S'okay, Mird, I'll let you hunt kaminiise soon," Skirata said. He wondered if he was getting soft: he'd always dis-liked the animal, even if he couldn't blame it for its savagery given a master like Vau. Now he saw its talents, if not its charm. "Soon. Okay?"
Mird's eyes had that focus and intensity that suggested it understood Skirata perfectly, and it settled down again with its huge head in Vau's lap. Mereel slid his sun visor into place and leaned back against the curve of the hull, fingers meshed behind his head.
"Let's narrow down the search range first," he said, pointing. "Look. Check out the speed."
Moving across the harbor, well within the safe turquoise shallows, was a powered barge with aquata divers getting ready to explore the underwater world, wearing a bizarre array of brightly colored swimwear that said they didn't dive for a living. The hull looked like the barges tied up on nearby pontoons in Tropix resort livery: this was what the staff here used to get around the perfectly planned, ideally spaced is-land chain, and this was what the Twi'lek must have used to move Ko Sai's equipment and droids out to sea.
If they worked out the speed the barges could cruise, and factored in the weight of the cargo the Twi'lek had delivered, they'd get a radius within which to search.
Skirata aimed his datapad, laying it flat on his knee and letting it track the barge. "I was never very good at this ..." It was just a matter of timing it across a set distance, using the datapad like one of those gizmos that CSF sometimes used to track speeders. "Well, I make that fifteen klicks an hour."
Mereel slid along the hull and checked over his shoulder. "So that means if the barge went out to some RV point and returned in half an hour, we're looking at a maximum range of maybe ten klicks, if it was moving faster, and that's being optimistic."
"Let's take the search out to the fifteen-klick radius, then, just to be sure."
Vau keyed in the data and projected the holochart onto the hull. "This is three-dimensional, remember." A concave relief chart formed like a mesh basket in blue light that was hard to see in the sunlight. "That's the underwater topography in a fifteen-klick radius from the coordinates the Twi'lek gave us."
Even in these lighting conditions, Skirata could see the indentations of cave mouths under the waterline. The charts only went down as far as fifty meters.
It was as good a place as any to start looking.
"Who did the hydrography for the developers?" Mereel asked. "They put that fifty-meter limit in for a reason, be-cause they must have known what was below it. They didn't just stop looking because it was time for a caf break."
"I don't think there's the equivalent of city hall here," Skirata said. "We can't just stroll in and ask the local planning chief if we can look through his database. That's the problem with commercially owned planets."