Her apartment was on the five-hundredth floor, and armored rats didn't make it into her neighborhood, let alone know how to use the turbolift. She looked around, realizing she'd left the blaster on the table, and as her gaze swept past the sliding transparisteel doors to the balcony, she saw it: a salky, a domesticated version of the Kath hound, a popular pet among the trendy set in Galactic City because it didn't shed fur and didn't need much walking. The animal stared at her, head cocked appealingly on one side, and put one paw against the glass in a mute plea to be let in.
It must have jumped across from an adjacent balcony. Some people had no idea how to look after their pets. Besany tutted loudly and opened the doors just wide enough to talk to it without letting it in. It thrust its muzzle through the gap, whimpering and trying to lick her hand.
"Aww, sweetie, where did you come from?" Salkies had a thick mane that covered their whole head from shoulders to eyes, and looked a much cuter creature than the savage predator they were bred from. "Did some silly person leave the doors open? Where's your collar?" She risked fumbling through its mane to look for some identity tag; these creatures were expensive, so it was certain to have one. "We'll get someone to collect you, sweetheart. You just hold still..."
"What is this?" said the salky in a liquidly rich male voice. "Has your building got a no-pets rule or something? Let me in before somebody spots me."
Besany yelped and jumped back, stunned. Before she could even begin to panic about hallucinations, the salky deformed into a smooth shapeless mass and squeezed through the gap like molten metal before changing color. Now Besany was looking at a pool of black glossy material that resolved into a four-legged, fanged creature like a sand panther.
"Fierfek," she said, and that wasn't a word she used often. "It's you."
The Gurlanin narrowed brilliant orange eyes and padded over to the sofa. "I'm not Jinart, but I suppose we all look the same to you. Am I allowed on the furniture?"
"Look, I..."
"Don't worry about the name." He sniffed around the room as if checking for something. "Your people kept your side of the bargain. The last human has left Qiilura. So as a parting gesture of goodwill to those charming soldier boys, I have some information for you."
The Gurlanins had said they could be anywhere and no-body would know. She almost asked this one if he'd thought about a career in Treasury Audit, then had a chilling thought that a Gurlanin could have been working right next to her or following her in the street at any time. What did you say to a shapeshifting spy? "That's very kind."
"One, make sure you keep that blaster with you at all times, because your meeting with Senator Skeenah did not go unnoticed, and you're under surveillance by Republic Intelligence, and I don't mean Sergeant Skirata's men. I mean the highest level of government." He shoved his snout into the kitchen and snuffled again. "Two, you won't find Dhannut Logistics, because they don't exist. They're a front for moving credits around inside Republic finances. You did well to find the connection with Centax Two, but if you keep crashing around you're going to get caught, so I'll save you some time. Yes, there are clones now being produced in facilities outside Kamino-some here, most on Centax, and a lot of them. No, the Grand Army command hasn't been told, be-cause those Jedi generals will want the extra men to deploy right away, but they won't get them. So you can pass that on to your contact."
Besany didn't think she'd been crashing around any-where. She was mortified. "Why should I believe you?"
"Because Qiilura has a fragile ecology and we know Skirata is a vengeful little piece of vermin who really could persuade the fleet to melt it to slag. We want to be left alone now. Really alone."
"I see."
"We'll maintain a presence here, by way of insurance," said the Gurlanin. "Not that you'd notice."
"Okay, but can I ask..."
"No."
"Just the.."
"I said no. And don't be tempted to dig further, because you have no idea what you're really dealing with." The Gurlanin sat back on his haunches and looked as if he was shrugging his shoulders, rippling long muscles, and then she realized he was changing form again. "Things can always get a lot worse."
"Did I really crash around?"
"Actually, you did exceptionally well-for a human. But that's not going to be good enough. And things might be get-ting too dangerous even for us."
He lapsed into silence without explaining what that meant, and then became a shapeless lump of marble before extruding-there was no other word for it-into a man, up-right and all too familiar.
Gurlanins were perfect mimics. She'd seen one posing as a civilian employee she worked with, and never spotted it. They could pass as anyone and anything!
It seemed they could also pass as clone troopers. Besany stared back at a man in white armor who could have been Ordo, except he wasn't behaving like him, and he didn't have a helmet. The replica smiled coldly at her; her stomach churned, and it took every scrap of strength to stop herself from thinking through the implications of that chilling little trick.
"I'll let myself out the front door," he said. "It's not as if people don't know about Ordo now, is it?"
For a long time after the Gurlanin left, Besany couldn't bear to sit down on the sofa or even use the refresher, be-cause she no longer had any idea what was real and what was illusion. She paced around, horribly awake with no prospect of getting to sleep tonight, and wondered what she could safely do and say even within her own home. But she had her secure comlink, and she needed to trust something right then.
She keyed in Ordo's code and tried not to think of the Gurlanin who could metamorphose into him so fast, so easily, and so convincingly.
Outskirts of Eyat, Gaftikar, 478 days after Geonosis A cluster of blue-lit T-shapes wobbled toward him in the darkness, and Darman checked the chron in his HUD.
"Lights out, vode," Niner said, and the blue lights vanished. Omega Squad were now invisible to infrared and EM scans, and very nearly invisible to the naked eye as well, although it was still easier to see them than detect them with sensors. "Torrents approaching from the south, time on tar-get eight standard minutes."
"I'm shifting the remote," said Atin. "There's activity on the eastern side of city, vehicles moving. Has Leveler got any high-altitude scans online yet?"
Darman's HUD display was a mass of image icons: the views from the remote they'd sent up earlier to observe the positioning of mobile anti-air cannon, the point-of-view screens from each of his brothers-Fi's was shaking slightly in a definite rhythm, showing he was back in his private world of deafeningly loud glimmik music-and a composite feed from Leveler, currently displaying a Torrent pilot's view of a low-level approach over the unspoiled countryside.
Darman never liked having time to think too much, especially now. He kept seeing the restaurant and the mini mall in the unirail station. A'den told him he was overidentifying as part of adjusting to the presence of the civilian world, seeing what he could have been in that world, and that it'd settle back down to worrying about his own shebs very, very fast. He hoped so.
Niner opened the link to Leveler. "Leveler, this is Omega, do you have any real-time imaging you can show us yet?"
"Omega, we do, and we're trying to identify the civil defense headquarters and the comm station."
"Leveler, we have anti-air units moving around here. Please advise Torrents."
"Omega, can you confirm this marked coordinate as the comm station?"
"Leveler, affirmative, but is that now a target?"
"Omega-only for ground forces. We're targeting the relay satellite from orbit."
Niner made his impatient-Skirata noise, clicking his teeth. "Leveler, we'd like voice links to the Torrents. Please advise on frequency."
It wasn't supposed to be done that way because it made for confusing voice traffic, but Niner always wanted the option of aborting a strike himself rather than relying on a relay via the ship. Leveler's end of the link went silent.
"I hope he's asking Pillion or whatever his name is for per-mission, and making it snappy," said Fi. "Six minutes to tar-get."
Atin huffed. "Two triple-A units on the move, Sarge. I'm transmitting the coordinates anyway."
"Leveler," Niner said, "triple-A units moving. You should have new coordinates. Can you confirm you've identified those?"
"Omega, confirmed."
"Leveler, I'll run through the frequency range and identity the Torrent channel..."
"Omega, please avoid direct comm because of risk of conflicting orders. Stand by for sitrep."
Niner snapped over to the closed squad link for a brief, angry moment. "In your dreams, di'kut. If I lock on, you can't block me." Then he flicked back to the ship's link. "Leveler, understood. Omega out."
"Mir'osik," Fi muttered. "We're the ones on the ground." Niner checked his Deece. "We're going to have to teach them respect for special forces someday."
"Etain thinks Commander Levet is a good vod," Darman said. "But I'd still feel happier if I could interrupt and point out if they were hitting the wrong target. It gets a bit frantic in the comm center sometimes."
"Heads up, larties incoming ..." A'den's voice cut into the circuit.
The Null was a thousand meters or so east of them with one group of Marits, who'd brought up an impressive range of cannons and artillery as well as thousands of troops. When Darman focused with his visor on maximum sensitivity, the area looked like an undulating sea, and then he real-ized it was actually the mass of lizards getting ready to overrun the city. It bothered him. He didn't know or even care who was right in this planet's oddly restrained dispute-restrained up to now, anyway-but helping it happen didn't sit well with him, and it was the first time he'd felt that so clearly.
He could hear the LAAT/i gunships now, the larties, a wonderfully reassuring chonker-chonker sound that said ex-traction, air support, and friendly faces.
"This is like using thermal dets on insects," Fi said, more to himself than anything. "They might knock out a few Tor-rents if they're lucky."
"We don't often have this much of an advantage, ner vod," said Niner. "Enjoy it while you can."
The chonking note of the larties was overlaid now with much higher-pitched drives, the equally familiar sound of V-19 Torrent fighters that rose to a deafening crescendo as they streaked low overhead. Darman's helmet audio shut down briefly to protect his hearing. Seconds later the first fireball rose into the night sky above the eastern approach road, and the battle started.
Darman found it unsettling to stand waiting while other troops went forward. Omega were used to being the first in, softening up position, sabotaging, preparing the battlefield. Forward air control-if they were fulfilling that role at all with Leveler in orbit-was something a droid could do: ob-serving, confirming, relaying accurate coordinates and data. They didn't need scarce resources like a commando squad to do it.
Adrenaline without an outlet was a bad thing. Darman fretted. Fifty meters west of them, one of the larties landed and a squad of 35th Infantry jumped out.
"You want a ride in?" the sergeant said. "We're securing the HoloNet center. Don't want to break it before we can send out all those uplifting Republic messages, do we?"
"We had an op order once," Niner said, mock-wistful, "but obviously some officer lost the thing. Shab, why not? We're just watching the show otherwise." He opened the link to Leveler. "Leveler, Omega requesting confirmation that you want us to take the HoloNet center ..."
The comm officer on the line didn't sound like a clone. He did sound under a lot of pressure, though.
"Omega, confirmed."
Niner jogged after the 35th's sergeant; Darman's tally scanner showed him as Tel. "He's a man of few words."
"That's because he doesn't know many," Tel said. "We've got mongrel officers now, for fierfek's sake, and that one only got through the Academy because his dad's some ranking captain. If he could read a chart, he'd be dangerous. You should hear Pellaeon having a go at him." Tel paused. "Pellaeon's all right, though. They're not all useless."
Omega piled into the gunship through its open side, and Darman grabbed a safety strap. Mongrels: more nonclone officers, then. He hadn't had contact with many. Fi and Atin peered out of the crew bay with the confidence born of armor that could take a lot more punishment than the average trooper's. Darman watched the slight "tilt of white-helmeted heads as the infantry checked out the commandos' kit, like they always did. When it was the only focus in your life, you tended to notice what kit others had and you didn't.
"That matte-black rig," said one of the grunts. "Is it so we can write interesting things on it in lumi-markers?"
"They teach you to write?" Fi feigned comic shock. "No point being that overqualified, ner vod. Is that why you go around in threes?"
"What?"
"One who can read, one who can write, and one who likes the company of intellectuals ..."
"Tell me that one again when I'm on the winch end of your rappel line, will you?"
It was all banter. Nobody called them Mando-loving weirdos, anyway. The larty zigzagged between streams of triple-A and the smoke trails from flares.
"Just for your notebook," Niner said quietly, "we usually go in and secure the strategic targets before the shooting starts. It's idiosyncratic, I know, but it seems to work."
"Tell the mongrel in the fancy uniform," Tel said wearily. "I just go when sent."
It was a surreal experience. The larty touched down briefly to drop the squads in an empty market square lit by the yellow glow of fires blazing nearby. There wasn't a human being in sight: no defending army, no fleeing civilians, nothing. But they'd known the attack was imminent, and the Mar-its said there was an extensive network of underground service passages that would double as shelters. Darman felt a little better about that. They ran for the HoloNet building that was helpfully identified by a large sign reading HOLO-GAFTIKAR CHANNEL TEN.
Tel checked the datapad on his forearm plate. "Well, they're still broadcasting. The satellite's supposed to be neutralized, though."
Atin fired a grapple over the edge of the roof and tugged on the line, testing for weight. "I'll see what I can disable at the uplink anyway." He winched himself up, and Niner and Fi stacked either side of the entrance with the 35th while Darman unrolled a strip of det tape with a flourish and stuck it on the doors to form a frame charge.
"Cover!" He counted down while everyone turned away from the direction of the blast. "Fire!"
The doors ripped apart in a burst of smoke and debris. Niner went in a breath before Tel, saving a scrap of squad pride, and the process of clearing the building began the hard way via the emergency stairs because the turbolift was stuck between floors. Darman covered Niner as he smashed open doors to offices, finding nobody inside.
"They can transmit days of programming from a datachip array, Sarge," Darman said. "They might have done that."
Fi's voice came on the HUD link. "I think I've found the studio."
"Why?"
"It says STUDIO TWO on the door."
"Well, we know there's a Studio One as well, then."
Darman consulted the meticulously mapped construction database the Marits had given Omega when they arrived, but it wasn't clear from the floor plans which were recording areas and which were transmission. Maybe it didn't matter if the satellite relay was compromised and Atin could disable the uplink.
"If this place is still staffed at all," he said, "there'll be the obligatory lone hero keeping the patriotic resistance mes-sages going while we kick down the door."
"Try not to damage the kit, that's all," Tel said. "Otherwise we'll have to ship in replacements before the propaganda and psy ops spooks can move in."
Darman had another moment of wondering how this all fitted in with his overall mission, then ran up the stairs to find Fi. He was crouched outside the studio doors, holding a sensor against the metal.
"There's a transmission signal coming out of here," he said. "Might as well knock."
Darman looked up. "Red light. Means live to air, don't go in, and so on, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Fi agreed, and put a few Deece bolts through the control panel at the side. "It does."
Darman never found out if there was the last brave broad-caster in Eyat still sitting at the console, spreading defiant messages to repel the invaders. The next thing he knew was that he was being thrown upward on his back, hurtling toward the ceiling, and that his audio circuits cut out with a snap as a ball of light lifted him. Somehow he was expecting an explosion to be much louder. The ceiling rushed to meet him and he smashed into it, feeling motionless in midair for a moment before crashing back down and feeling his chest plate hit something very hard as he fell. He was aware of bumping helplessly down a flight of stairs on his back, flailing to grab anything to stop his fall. When he finally stopped moving, he couldn't hear a thing except the rain of falling debris hitting his helmet.
The HUD was still working. He just didn't have audio. He tried the comlink channels and got nothing, but he had Niner's POV icon, and Atin's, and they were moving: they were shaking like the view of someone working frantically to move something. It looked like smashed masonry and durasteel beams. There was a filter of dust around him as thick as smoke.
But Fi's icon wasn't moving at all. The horizontal was canted at a steep angle, as if Fi was lying on the floor on one side. Debris was visible, blurred as if it was too far inside the focus range, pressed to the input cam of the visor.
"Fi?" No good: he wouldn't hear him. Darman pulled off his helmet, knowing he was battered but not feeling any-thing. "Fi? Fi!" he yelled. His mouth filled with dust and he spat it out, dribbling some down his chest plate. "Fi, vod'ika, are you okay?"
But there was no answer. Darman hooked his helmet onto his belt and began tearing through the rubble, looking for Fi.
Chapter 12.
They grow up loyal to the Republic, or they don't grow up at all.