Yanibar Tales/The Cauldron

“''All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill!''” The hull of the ship lurched and shuddered, layering an ominous rumble beneath the mechanically-filtered words repeating through the ship’s PA system. The noise and vibration ungently shook Republic Army Captain Alpha-28 from his rest. Sitting up and throwing off the monotone gray army blanket, the soldier sprang to his feet and quickly took in his surroundings. The ship shuddered again as he rapidly regained his bearings. He was on a Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer, the Pride of Anaxes, on a secret mission to the Ione system. He was an Advanced Reconnaissance Commando, an elite soldier serving the Republic in a time of war against a Separatist menace that threatened to turn the entire galaxy into chaos, part of the finest fighting force in the galaxy, and literally bred for combat—but not this kind. His battle was a more personal fight, fought with blasters, explosives, and the occasional heavy weaponry. The calamitous duels between enormous space-going metal behemoths bristling with armor and turbolasers were far beyond his ability to influence. The lights flickered as the deck swayed beneath his feet. Alpha-28 quickly pulled on his armor. His movements were rapid and efficient, strapping the white plastoid-alloy composite plates into place and securing the additional belts and gear harnesses. Another two dozen clone troopers near him did likewise, though their armor was less sophisticated and clumsier than his own protective suit. All the while, alarms continued to blare throughout the ship, which rocked alarmingly as it engaged in combat. “Get to stations!” Alpha-28 ordered, and the others quickly fell in behind him. Alpha-28 scowled as he realized that most of his equipment was in the armory, and the frown on his face furrowed deeper as he realized that very little of it would be of use in a ship-to-ship battle. Not unless they were boarded. The ARC made his way over to the embarkation area where another two hundred clone troopers were gathered. A console overloaded and blew out in a shower of sparks as he passed by, but his armor protected him from burns. Wisps of smoke clouded the air, while the impacts were strong enough to toss him painfully into the wall and deck due to the sheer violence of their infliction. The soldier staggered to his feet and glanced at a tactical monitor. The Pride of Anaxes was being battered by multiple attackers. The battle was clearly not going well. A sinking feeling welled up in the pit of his stomach. He had long made peace with the fact that he would likely die in battle, but to die in space, powerless to even contribute to the fight? That was the worst possibility—ending up as a frozen corpse or atomized, a mere afterthought to a battle fought without the possibility of contributing other than a number on a casualty list. The ship’s PA blared again, the raucous noise cutting through the wail of sirens and crash of falling equipment. “This is the captain! All hands, abandon ship! Repeat, abandon ship!”

Alpha-28 scowled, and then immediately headed for one of the escape pods. The wounded destroyer shuddered and lurched, the lights flickering and dimming as hostile fire bored through its armor to savage its internal compartments and components. Alpha-28 fought to keep himself on his feet. He passed by a hallway leading to a turbolaser battery station. Frantic voices speaking in rapid-staccato drifted out from the hallway as Alpha-28 held onto a bulkhead during a particularly violent tremor.

“Charge cannons one and two! Bring turret three up five degrees elevation, track nineteen!”

“Cannons charging! Acquiring solution!”

“Fire on that Recusant!”

“Capacitors overloading! Failures in the primary coolant systems!”

“Re-routing! No good! Feedback surge imminent!”

“Get back!”

A loud whoosh was followed by a thunderous explosion. Several more secondary crackles reverberated through. Alpha-28 peered down the hallway as clouds of foul smoke began billowing from the control room. A fire was burning on one console and he heard someone screaming inside. That was a relatively good sign—the chamber hadn’t been opened to vacuum and some of the crew were still alive. Grabbing a fire extinguisher, he dashed into the ruined control room and began dousing the flames with spray of fire suppressant. Several bodies were strewn across the room, blackened and burned from when the feedback surge had ravaged the fire control room. Alpha-28 found one man who was still alive, his legs trapped under a console that had collapsed onto him, pinning him to the deck. The ARC slapped the emergency shut-off, draining power from the control bank, and then heaved it up.

“Get out, quick,” he grunted as he strained against the heavy metal object.

The man crawled out, whimpering with every movement of his crushed legs. Alpha-28 quickly removed the man’s belt and wrapped it around one leg to stem the blood flow to the wounded appendage. The naval officer screamed in pain, but though the soldier winced in sympathy, there was no time for anything gentler. He removed one of his own equipment belts to serve as a second tourniquet, and then picked up the man, slinging him over his shoulders. Several other clones had entered the ruined chamber, rescuing two more survivors and dousing the fires.

“Escape pods, now!” Alpha-28 barked gruffly, staggering along as best as he could with his heavy burden.

The lights failed, plunging the ship into eerie darkness marked only by glowing red emergency lights. The soldiers quickened their pace, aided by their helmet’s low-light systems. Finding their way to the escape pods, they climbed in and quickly sealed the hatch. The ship shuddered, its death throes violent and tumultuous. Once the last soldier was inside, Alpha-28 wasted no time in activating the release.

The small capsule blasted away from the wounded destroyer, leaving the mortally-stricken mother ship behind. Out of control and still battered by lances of argent fire from the marauding cruisers, it began its slow roll into oblivion, flames and plasma spilling from breached reactor segments. None of the Star Destroyer’s weapon emplacements were firing any more. A few more escape pods launched from the ship as the once-proud warship succumbed to the prolonged bombardment. Finally, its reactor core detonated, tearing out the bottom of the ship in a bright flash of light and fire that caused Alpha-28 to shield his eyes. As the Pride of Anaxes spilled its superheated innards into space even as the predatory cruisers continued firing at it, the ARC just hoped that finishing off the Star Destroyer had bought the escape pods enough time to survive.

He wondered how many people had been on the ship when it had blown up, how many had made it off. Then he glanced over at the wounded naval officer he had saved who was lying on the floor and moaning piteously as two clone troopers applied first aid. Suddenly, he decided he would rather not know the answer.

It was the start of what would be a very long two weeks drifting through space in the cramped confines of the escape pod with eleven other clones and five naval crewmen, wondering if they would die of carbon dioxide poisoning or dehydration before they could be rescued.


 * Nineteen days later

“Captain Alpha-28 reporting as ordered, sir.” The ARC stiffened to attention as he stood in front of the general’s desk.

“At ease, Captain,” General Ram Venasee told him, smoothing down his uniform jacket.

A stern-looking Iktotchi, the general was one of a relatively few of his species in Republic service. Alpha-28 knew that he had years of experience in the Judicial Forces suppressing pirates and dealing with a variety of threats in this relatively backwater area of space. Unlike some of the Republic’s more. . . prominent military leaders, Ram Venasee was no Jedi. Just a capable officer who happened to have the right service record in a time when the Republic needed every capable officer it could find.

“I trust you are recovered from that ordeal in the escape pod?”

“Yes, sir,” Alpha-28 replied, not sure where he was going with this.

“Good,” Venasee said.

Rising, the general walked over to the window of his Coruscant office, looking out across the marshalling yards below. His large black eyes surveyed the fraction of the Republic war machine assembling on the lot for several seconds before he turned back to Alpha-28.

“The loss of the Pride of Anaxes was a considerable blow to our war efforts,” he said. “Your ship’s mission was to secure several productive mining outposts in the Greater Javin by providing security and dealing with various outlaw and Separatist elements.”

“That’s correct, sir,” Alpha-28 replied.

“Intelligence was not aware that so many Separatist ships had been moved into that sector,” General Venasee told him. “Or we wouldn’t have sent a single Star Destroyer to sacrifice itself.”

Alpha-28 stiffened. This wasn’t the first time that Republic Intelligence’s blunders had led to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers.

“Unfortunately, this means we’re back to the negotiating table with the various leaders of the mining guilds and corporations in the region,” Venasee informed him. “They’re inclined to be. . . distrustful and the Commerce Guild is no doubt exerting pressure on them.”

“Sir, a suggestion,” Alpha-28 said.

Venasee nodded at him.

“Why not simply nationalize the mining outposts?” the ARC asked.

Venasee made a dismissive gesture.

“Were it only so easy,” he answered. “That would take time and manpower that the Republic doesn’t have readily available. Instead, we need to let the diplomats work.”

Alpha-28’s mind jumped several steps ahead in the conversation. There was no reason the commander would have invited him here just to discuss the strategic setback. He was a soldier, not a diplomat or a general. That implied that he was here to be informed of some operation ostensibly related to the negotiations.

“What is the mission, sir?” Alpha-28 asked.

The Iktotchi nodded appreciatively.

“Very astute, Captain,” he said. “The Republic is meeting with several leaders on a world called Orin in a covert diplomatic conference. It’s in the same system as Bespin, but the miners don’t want to be seen in public on a nice resort world like Bespin, so instead. . . they’re meeting us at an obscure retreat on a volcanic world where nobody will look for them.”

Alpha-28 suppressed a grimace. He had never fought on a volcanic world. He had no desire to—something about choking ash, searing heat, and rivers of lava along with the list of usual battle hazards lacked appeal.

“I want you to accompany the delegation to Orin,” Venasee told him. “One, you have experience dealing with anything unexpected.”

He paused, and then made sure the door was closed.

“Second, there is a very important and covert mission that requires someone of your. . . skills,” he said gravely. “We have reason to believe that the Republic’s chief negotiator, Niven Rayees, is a traitor. Evidence suggests he’s the one who leaked information about the Pride of Anaxes’ itinerary to the Separatists.”

Alpha-28 stiffened, a chill running down his spine at the commander’s words. That made this mission personal, and if Rayees was responsible for the loss of the Star Destroyer, then the ARC would obtain considerable personal satisfaction from stopping that threat.

“Ordinarily, we would simply have him arrested, but as a native of the Orin system, Rayees has a certain amount of personal. . . rapport with the miners. It would look bad and it would reveal that our diplomatic ranks have been compromised. We need to deal with him more discreetly. That’s where you come in.”

The commander moved back over to his desk.

“Ostensibly, you’ll be part of the security detail. Covertly, you’ll be staging a series of incidents and attacks, culminating in the assassination of Niven Rayees. Since the miners are providing the venue and arranged this conference, the loss of credibility, combined with outrage over the death of the ambassador, should allow the Republic to pressure them into joining us out of guilt and to prove they aren’t collaborating with the Separatists. With that single stroke, we’ll have undone all of that traitor’s work.”

Alpha-28 nodded grimly. It would be a covert, cloak-and-dagger type of mission. It might even pit him against Republic operatives trying to preserve the security of the conference. And it certainly wouldn’t be easy. Yet at the same time, the plan’s cold logic made sense, and the burning desire for revenge for the treachery of Rayees motivated the ARC even beyond his normal ingrained devotion to the Republic.

“I understand, sir,” he said. “I accept the mission.”

Not that he really had a choice, but at least it signified his willingness to accomplish the task. The commander smiled.

“I knew we could count on you,” he told him.

Picking up a datapad, he handed it to the ARC.

“This is all the information about the conference and its attendees as well as the Republic security detail that I could muster,” he said. “Submit any requests for information or equipment to my office personally. I’ll see that it gets taken care of.”

“Understood, sir,” Alpha-28 replied, saluting.

“I don’t think I need to tell you that you cannot trust anyone outside of this room,” General Venasee warned him. “This mission will be exceedingly difficult—and if your actions should become public, they will be disavowed and you hunted as a traitor to the Republic. I had to fight tooth and nail to have this plan approved—and whatever support you need, I’ll do my best to provide it as long as it stays quiet.”

“I’ll get it done,” Alpha-28 told him.

“Your record shows that you always do,” General Venasee said approvingly. “We’re lucky to have you, Captain. Shuttle leaves in one week. Good luck.”

The ARC saluted, took the datapad, and left, his mind buzzing with all of the preliminary details and planning that were in front of him. He had a lot of work to do.


 * Elsewhere on Coruscant

The restaurant was just a couple of shades below the sort of glitzy venue that drew its clientele from the innumerable swarms of mid-level bureaucrats and officials that worked and lived as part of the Republic’s sprawling bureaucracy. The prices were certainly high enough for such an establishment, but a few subtle details tended to draw away such crowds. For one, the décor was overdone, a cluttered, kitschy style with heavy emphasis on agrarian trinkets and symbology that held little appeal with the urbane tastes of most bureaucrats. For two, though the price was certainly high enough for the vanity of self-indulgent aspiring bourgeoisie, the blend of the various ingredients of the dishes was neither appetizing, nor truly innovative. The discordant and conflicting tastes resulted in a culinary experience that, while unique, failed to meet up to expectations. Thus, Cherki’s Café was perhaps one of the least occupied restaurants in this particular level of Coruscant during an hour when every eatery in the district was swarmed with hungry government employees looking for a fine repast and a brief diversion from their vocational activities. That, of course, made it quite useful for arranging a discreet rendezvous.

“You’re sure about this?”

The speaker was a Human man, middle-aged and balding. His brow was furrowed in a frown that only served to accentuate his thick black eyebrows. Sitting across the table from him, poking half-heartedly at a yellowish soup of noodles, curdled eggs, and vegetable, was a slender Human woman. Both were wearing bland, nondescript attire that might be expected from low-level bureaucrats. That and the fact that they had voluntarily chosen to eat at Cherki’s marked them as nobody of particular significance or taste—such a person would never been seen there.

“Of course I’m not sure,” the woman replied. “If I was, I wouldn’t have described it as a hunch.”

The man’s already severe frown deepened.

“You do realize the implications of making such an accusation,” he told her. “The political ramifications alone would be. . . severe.”

“Which is why we’re meeting in this dump of a café,” she replied evenly. “And which is why I’ve bypassed three levels in the chain of command to approach you.”

“And in a quite impressively anonymous fashion,” the man said. “That doesn’t happen every day, or else I wouldn’t be here.”

“Flattery aside, this intelligence is credible.”

The man’s eyebrow arched.

“Or at least actionable,” she amended.

“True,” he conceded. “And since we both know the costs, I can’t afford to just sit on this. At the same time, it would be quite the shame to tip our hand if what you say is true.”

“So what are you going to do?” the woman asked.

He smiled in a not-entirely-friendly fashion.

“I’m going to recommend you finish that soup quickly,” he said.

The woman gave him a sour face.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

“You have a busy day ahead of you,” the man informed her. “I’m going to have you assigned to the delegation heading to Orin.”

She didn’t seem fazed by the man’s announcement.

“In what capacity?”

“As leader of an extra intelligence team on special assignment supplied under orders of the Supreme Chancellor to provide additional security. Put together a team and send me their dossiers.”

“You can do that?” she asked him.

“I don’t bluff much,” he replied. “I don’t have to. And it’s not unprecedented. The army is sending a small team as well. The Republic is thoroughly committed to these negotiations.”

“Except if my lead is correct.”

“Then it falls to you to make sure that doesn’t happen,” the man told her. “Do we understand each other?”

She met his appraising gaze.

“Perfectly,” she told him.

“Good,” the man answered, placing a twenty-cred coin on the table and rising to leave. “Lunch is on me. Next time, I recommend the tava bread nerf sandwich.”

And then just like that, he was gone, disappeared into the masses of pedestrians outside and mingling seamlessly in the crowd with ease that only a practiced operative or con artist possessed.


 * One week later, Darion Retreat Enclave, Orin

Alpha-28 surveyed the broad dining room he was standing in, a curved, elegant affair that was obviously the centerpiece of the experience at the Darion Retreat Enclave. He had arrived early to the meeting to scope out the space and now he took it all in with careful, intent observation. While he wasn’t wearing his armor with its full array of sensors and data-collection tools—deemed too intimidating by the diplomats—he still had his own keen mental senses.

Round tables, each surrounded by four chairs, were interspersed throughout the room at regular intervals, covered with a white table cloth and topped with napkins, place settings, and several sets of utensils that he had come to associate with upper-class dining. The room’s décor was fairly sparse, and the accoutrements trended towards an elegant, sleek black theme, often worked into a stylized flame motif. Alpha-28 suspected that the room’s furnishings were intentionally left minimalist so as to not detract from the reason why the dining room had been placed at the top of the retreat center overlooking its main attraction.

The entire exterior-facing wall of the dining center was an enormous floor-to-ceiling window. Looking out, Alpha-28 took in a natural spectacle that no doubt was the primary influence and attraction of the retreat center. While many of the guests no doubt found natural beauty in it, the ARC could only appreciate the hazards and risks associated with placing a retreat center on the rim of what could be best described as a glimpse into the fiery hell of Corellian myths.

The Darion Retreat Enclave was perched atop the rim of a massive crater well over two kilometers in diameter. Looking down into that crater revealed a hellish sight. A panoply of fires burned incessantly throughout the crater, fed by underground veins of petrochemicals. Jagged spires of basaltic rock protruded through the gaps in the flames while pools of boiling mud collected in other less fiery areas. The orange glow from the fires revealed that the bottom of the crater was entirely barren and filled with loose scree and scorched soil. Hundreds of small fissures spouted fire, with some of the leaping flames spitting up gouts of flames tens of meters high as a new pocket of petrochemicals forced its way to the surface air. Embers and sparks floated lazily upward, carried by currents of heat that arose with angry menace from the inferno. The air shimmered from the heat and Alpha-28 shuddered. Volcanic worlds were bad enough environments to wage a war on or mine from; who would want to create a tourist attraction on top of an eternal pit of fire?

“Impressive, isn’t it?” a voice asked him. “The locals call it the Cauldron.”

Alpha-28 frowned, inwardly annoyed at how someone had approached within a few meters of him without knowing. His situational awareness had been temporarily distracted by the hellish sight beyond the window, a mistake which could prove fatal in combat. He made a mental note to go through several awareness exercises that evening and not let happen again.

“I suppose so,” he answered slowly while he did a quick evaluation of the newcomer.

She was a slender Human woman wearing nondescript black attire that could have been either the understated formal wear of a dignitary or the work attire of a servant at a classy establishment such as the retreat center. The ARC suspected that the ambiguity in her dress was intentional. Her facial expression was reserved, tightly-controlled, but there was a certain hardness of the eyes that Alpha-28 had come to associate with people who had to make hard choices about the lives of others. He recognized her from her dossier as one of the Republic Intelligence operatives running security.

“You must be Agent Taskien,” he said, offering his hand.

She shook it.

“You must be Alpha-28,” she replied evenly.

Alpha-28’s eyebrow quirked up as a trace of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“I see we’ve read each other’s dossiers,” he said.

“Apparently,” she replied. “Which makes me wonder why one of the Republic’s prized ARCs is at a diplomatic conference.”

Alpha-28’s smile tightened.

“To protect the negotiations,” he answered.

She didn’t skip a beat.

“Not exactly your job description.”

“My job description is flexible.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Diplomatic security isn’t exactly a job for one of the army’s fancy super-soldiers,” she tried again. “So why did they send you?”

“You’ll have to ask my superiors,” Alpha-28 told her.

“Of course,” she said, betraying no hint of vexation at the verbal snub. “Just remember: this is a team effort.”

“And we’re all on the same team,” Alpha-28 answered. “I understand. But it’s also not your team to lead.”

This time, a trace of irritation did cross the operative’s face.

“Well, it was very kind of the diplomatic service to allow us access to their planning meeting to receive orders and sit quietly until spoken to.”

Alpha-28 suppressed a grin. If there was anything that intelligence and the army—two organizations who didn’t always see eye-to-eye—could agree on, it was a mutual disdain of the diplomatic service, who often seemed intent on undoing any gains made by the other two services in order to make a trade elsewhere. And while there was a certain pragmatic logic to their actions, the ARC detested the notion of giving up concessions from worlds that had been gained through the blood of the army. He suspected that intelligence often saw things in a similar light.

“I see they’re treating you with their usual subtlety and grace,” he said sarcastically.

“Some things never change,” she quipped.

An announcement at the front of the room called them to their tables to begin the briefing. Alpha-28 took his seat along with the other eight clone troopers—also unarmored—who were there as a quick-reaction force. The soldiers distributed themselves across two tables as a burly Twi’lek, Agent Srivas of the Republic Diplomatic Service launched into a security briefing. Alpha-28 took notes on a datapad from the agent’s presentation as they discussed physical perimeters, electronic counter-surveillance, guard patrols, secure locations, and contingency plans. The diplomatic service, working the miner’s guild, had devised a fairly-thorough security plan, but it was also thoroughly unimaginative, with no particularly unexpected precautions. Every response was scripted out according to standard protocol.

Alpha-28 made no comment during the meeting about the security arrangements. First, the diplomatic service liaison had made it very clear that this was their operation to coordinate, and that most of the security was being handled by the miner’s guild. He and the other army soldiers were largely there only as a last resort, nothing more, an irritating presence that had only been begrudgingly accepted. Second, Alpha-28 knew that while the standard playbook worked for most scenarios, it had a few weaknesses he could exploit. Given the nature of his secret mission from Commander Venasee, it was so much the better that he not plug all of the gaps, at least not right away.

After the meeting was concluded, the local Orin security official, a dour-faced human named Dhaz led them on a tour of the facility. Alpha-28 observed the man closely. He seemed to have a fairly orthodox approach to security, with little enthusiasm or creativity, but the ARC did not want to underestimate him, given that his secret mission would directly oppose Dhaz’s efforts.

As they were conducted into the speeder garage, Alpha-28 tensed slightly as he prepared his first test for Dhaz’s security measures. In one of the pockets of his non-descript uniform was a universal signaler designed to activate speeders remotely. While diplomatic speeders were equipped with signal scramblers designed to protect against such devices, the device in Alpha-28’s possession had was equipped with electronic bypass measures that would query the speeder for the proper response code and then repeat it. It was a subtle, yet effective means of gaining access to a vehicle. Yet despite the potency, the signaler was a diversion.

Falling back to the rear of the larger group of Republic operatives and security detail, Alpha-28 watched as Dhaz led them through the speeder garage, keeping a close eye on the security man. Just as Dhaz’s path led in front of a red delivery speeder being worked on by a pair of mechanics, Alpha-28 triggered his signaler at the red speeder. The vehicle abruptly started up and lurched forward towards the group.

The security response was nothing if not efficient. The entire group reflexively scattered for cover, but the mechanics were able to immediately arrest the speeder’s motion.

“What the kriff was that?” Dhaz shouted.

“Sorry, sir,” one of them replied sheepishly. “Must’ve been a bug in the system!”

“See that it doesn’t happen again,” Dhaz roared, clearly embarrassed, then turned back to the group.

“Just a minor mechanical mishap,” he assured them. “Nothing to worry about.”

The Republic diplomatic, security, and intelligence agents didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, but they rose from their cover and continued the tour behind Dhaz—though they were certainly more observant this time. Nervous glances were cast about warily, alert for more danger. While Alpha-28 knew that their trepidation would pass, adding a bit more paranoia to the equation would certainly further his purposes, as would the opportunity to bump into one of the mechanics and “borrow” his security access card. The card was tagged and would no doubt be discovered eventually, but Alpha-28 had noticed that most of the mechanics tended to log in at the morning and log out at shift’s end—a small but exploitable security flaw.

Moreover, the brief confusion had allowed him a few precious seconds worth of access to the speeder where he had sought cover—the diplomatic speeder that would bring Ambassador Rayees to the Darion Retreat Enclave.


 * Two hours later

Taskien sat at the desk in her hotel room, blearily rubbing her eyes as she pored over intelligence reports. For once, the problem wasn’t that there wasn’t enough information; there was too much. There were dozens of potential threats to the Republic-Greater Javin Miners accord. Any number of Separatist interests could have discovered the conference’s location—but if that was the case, why wasn’t there a battle fleet in orbit to capture or kill the delegates? The problem was that all of the threats were vague, hiding in shadow, and unrealized. Just then her comlink beeped three times in rapid succession, indicating a priority signal. She picked it up.

“Taskien.”

A terse, male voice that she recognized as belonging to one of Srivas’s assistants replied.

“There’s been a fire in the speeder pool.”

Immediately her blood pressure spiked.

“On my way,” she said, scrambling for her jacket and belt, tucking her blaster into its shoulder holster.

Making her way across the complex to the speeder pool, she joined a circle of Orin Security Force operatives and Republic agents around a cordoned-off area where an expensive-looking diplomatic speeder had collapsed on its rear-left quarter. The rear engine compartment was charred and still smoldering, leaving a smoky scent throughout the speeder pool.

“It appears to be just a small fire,” one of her colleagues observed. “How did it start?”

“The mechanics started the engine and it overloaded. Blew out one of its thermocouples and went up.”

“Might be nothing then,” the first one replied.

Taskien suppressed a biting remark. The fact that there was a fire at all—and one that had disabled the ambassador’s speeder—did not bode well. That meant that the conference had been potentially compromised and the ambassador was in danger.

“We should cancel the conference,” she said suddenly.

All of the other intelligence personnel around her immediately stopped talking and turned to stare at her as if she had just announced that she was General Grievous.

“Out of the question,” Dhaz snapped, obviously already defensive and on edge. “We continue as planned. This could be nothing.”

“That’s not your decision,” Taskien answered coolly. “We’ve obviously been compromised. Better to cut our losses and try again.”

“If the Republic won’t even meet with us to negotiate, how can we trust its promises of protection?” hissed an older man whom she recalled was part of the mining guilds’ diplomatic entourage.

“That would be easier to accept in good faith if our efforts to negotiate weren’t constantly being thwarted,” Taskien countered.

“First your security leaks, and now it overreacts to every flitnat that buzzes around!” the diplomat thundered. “Another reason to doubt Republic promises.”

“Just a minute,” interjected Srivas. “We all recognize the danger here, but let’s not throw away our carefully-built trust so hastily. It seems the best thing we can do at this point to show our combined determination is to let the conference proceed, but take every precaution. Let’s focus on what we can do to fix this and make sure nothing like it happens again. It might have just been a coincidence.”

He glared at Taskien.

“No need to get overly-alarmed. We’ll both look into the cause of the fire, and then reassess from there.”

The others glowered for a bit, but then slowly broke into a chorus of reluctant nods and grumblings of assent.

Taskien bit her lip to stop from saying what seasoned operatives referred to as a “career-ending sentence.” Srivas’s words seemed to have cooled the flaring tempers in the group, and he was pragmatically trying to find a solution that would appease both sides. He was technically in charge, and she would have to respect his orders—her comments earlier would likely earn her a good chewing-out anyway, and she couldn’t risk antagonizing him further. The problem with that, of course, was that their attacker might only be emboldened to strike again if the fire hadn’t been accidental. And next time, a fancy speeder might not be the only casualty.

Across the room, in a far corner of the garage, Alpha-28 slid his pilfered access card into the terminal’s access slot while the others were distracted by the fire he had caused. A few seconds later, he had access to not only the information available to Republic security teams, but also those belonging to the locals as well. Amazing that it had been so easy to slip into their secure nets. The ARC acted quickly, downloading as much of the information—comnet frequencies, speeder routes, emergency evacuation plans, electronic surveillance plans—as he could onto a tiny data card. Most importantly, he obtained the door access overrides that would allow him into any room in the facility. The entire data dump took less than a minute.

By that time, a quick spraydown had removed his fingerprints from the card and left it sitting innocuously on the terminal for its original owner to find. No doubt, he would sheepishly discover it and not report that he had misplaced his card there in a blatant security violation. Making his way back over to the crowd of onlookers, Alpha-28’s face betrayed no evidence of the triumph he felt, but now with the security bypasses obtained, he could move around with impunity. He would head back to his room, study the material he had learned, which combined with what had already been provided to the Republic, would give him plenty of opportunities. The ambassador would arrive shortly, and he wanted to be ready.


 * That evening

The shuttle broke through the blotchy dark clouds scattered through the Orin sky like black ink splattered across the amber sky. Taskien surveyed the landing pad area, shading her eyes against the glare. Between the sky, the rock, and the simmering cauldron behind them, everything was cast in shades of black and a deep, molten orange. She watched as the ambassador’s honor guard and several aides disembarked, followed by the ambassador himself. A bevy of Orin functionaries were there to meet him, and after exchanging brief pleasantries, the entire party moved quickly towards the entrance to the resort, no doubt eager to escape the sweltering heat that had left every member of the arrival security team soaked in their own sweat after waiting an extra hour for the shuttle to descend due to a bad upper atmospheric storm. Her assignment to this particular duty had no doubt been Srivas’s way of getting back at her for her unpopular statement earlier. Tugging at her collar, she fumed quietly—and then rolled her eyes upon realizing her pun. Taskien kept an eye on the landing pad for several more minutes, silently wondering why the miners’ guild couldn’t have arranged to meet on a real resort world instead of this volcanic excuse of a hotel built on top of a natural oven. Once she was satisfied that no threat or anomaly had manifested itself, she and the rest of the team assigned to watch the landing area headed back inside the secure doors. On her way back to the ready area where most of the security team waited while on duty but not assigned to a specific location, she stopped by the sensor station, where a dour-looking Gotal woman was seated at a chair in front of an impressive control panel.

“Jonna, anything on scopes?” she asked.

“Nothing aside from the ambassador’s ship,” came the reply. “Really hard to see much more than a dozen kilometers out, though. Big storm rolling through.”

“How bad is it going to be?” Taskien inquired.

“Bad,” Jonna told her. “Winds at 200 kph, looking at a few thousand square kilometers of coverage, and another 30 klicks high. Slow-moving too.”

“How is the station fixed to handle that?” Taskien asked.

Orin’s volcanic weather often created fierce volcanic storms replete with lightning and hurled chunks of volcanic ash torn from the scree fields that dotted the planet. But while Taskien had read about the storms in her briefing, the sheer size and frequency of the storm was still daunting.

“For the most part, we should be fine,” Jonna answered. “As long as you don’t plan on any flying tonight. No ships can fly through that mess, and sensors will be fogged too.”

“How long until it passes?”

The Gotal shrugged.

“I’d buckle in for a long night,” she said. “These things don’t move as fast as they would if they just dumped rain and moved on.”

Taskien nodded sourly. Great. Well, at least the storm would prevent any of the diplomatic delegations from flouncing away from the negotiating table. They were literally stuck together. On the other hand, sitting through hell’s version of a sand-storm didn’t exactly excite her either. Especially since she had been assigned overnight duties.


 * Four hours later

“Hey, have you seen this?” Alpha-28 asked. “There is a discrepancy in the staffing rotation. See?” He offered the man his datapad, which showed in highlighted text that the security details for the ambassador had somehow become misarranged. “Who did this?” the officer asked.

“Not sure, I just pulled it since the scheduling system’s been acting up. I’m sure it’s nothing,” he offered helpfully.

“Maybe,” the other replied. “But I don’t want the ambassador left unprotected. I’m going to pull this record and talk to Dhaz.”

“Go ahead,” the ARC said. “Make a copy.”

Inserting a data cylinder into the datapad, the officer made a quick copy, thanking Alpha-28 for bringing this to his attention. The ARC had done his best to be helpful and not disrupt the security arrangements. He’d followed the procedures well and helped others with their shifts, only offering occasional recommendations and never taking credit. Both arrangements had helped him win friends among the other intelligence operatives. He’d been careful not to appear too clever, just a notch above the usual level for a diplomatic entourage.

The fact that such a basic ruse had worked on the duty officer made him worry for the Republic’s survival, though. While it wasn’t fair for the man to expect a member of his own team to be working around them, he should have known better than to stick a data device into a potentially unsecured datapad. Now the ARC would able to initiate remote commands or retrieve data from whatever device the now compromised data cylinder accessed.

However, while the ARC’s goal was to further compromise the system if need be, there really had been a staffing discrepancy. This way he figured he killed two birds with one stone. The ambassador’s detail really had left a hole in the coverage, and that was the unacceptable sort of sloppiness that got people killed.

“Where is the ambassador now?”

“Uh, I think he’s supposed to be in his quarters resting.”

“I see,” Alpha-28 replied. “I’ll go check on him until the detail is posted. Just to be safe.”

“Sounds good.”

The ARC had considered taking out the ambassador right away, but there was no guarantee it wasn’t the sort of easy opportunity that lured less wary operatives to their doom. There was no way that the security detail had been rearranged so the most important person on the complex wasn’t protected. This had to be a trap of some sort, and if so, it was important for him to evaluate how clever of a trap it was—without springing it.

He reached the ambassador’s quarters without incident, but was surprised to find two guards waiting there, dour-faced Intelligence types in non-descript clothing.

“Just checking in,” he said, showing them his credentials. “Everything okay?”

“Yes.”

“VIP still resting?”

“That’s right. He’s been in there for a couple hours.”

Alpha-28 nodded curtly and walked off, but something seemed wrong about that exchange. Guards had been posted when none were on the schedule—so either the schedule really was wrong, or else the guards were lying. He checked his chrono—2050 local time. Probably reasonable to assume that the ambassador had eaten. A quick visit to the kitchen confirmed that a meal had been delivered to the ambassador’s room—but after he circled back to the security station, playback of the security footage revealed that one of the guards had carried the food inside and none of the dishes or plates had been picked up. Unusual, but not incriminating. However, he did notice one other unusual thing. More meals had been made by the kitchen than were scheduled—seven more. Too many to be accounted by someone being especially hungry.

Rewinding the security footage, Alpha-28 started tracking each of the meals and where they were delivered. Sure enough, he found a discrepancy. Seven plates had been delivered to the Magma Conference Room. He checked the schedule—nothing was supposed to be happening in Magma. Now that was suspicious. After closing down his station and erasing his queries, he left the security room without mentioning his discovery to anyone. He’d unofficially bugged the room—along with all the conference rooms—hiding the device inside the counter-surveillance gear. He’d stop by his room, check on the logs from Magma, and send a quick report to the general during the natural lapse in attention caused by the shift change at security. Then it’d be time to swing by Magma if the situation warranted. He smiled tightly. Or if an opportunity presented itself.


 * Outside the Magma Conference Room

Taskien scowled as she realized she was running late. Her security sweep was supposed to finish thirty minutes ago, but Dhaz had also assigned her to double-check the duty schedule before she started her sweep. Her partner, a bored-looking Umbaran named Ene, sighed as Taskien checked the next holocam. “How many more?” Ene asked.

“Four more conference rooms.”

“Good. I’m starving.”

“You can get food if you want,” Taskien said.

“You’ll need my help,” Ene pointed out. “You can’t see in the ultraviolet to ensure the holocams are operating correctly.”

Taskien sighed.

“I can use the imagers,” she replied. “There’s no reason for you to suffer from me being slow.”

“That’s a breach of protocol,” Ene said. “We’re supposed to work together.”

“If I have a choice between running a sweep by myself and listening to you grumble about how slow I am, I’d take the former,” Taskien answered.

“I’d feel responsible if you messed one of them up,” Ene told her.

“Wait a second,” Taskien said. “I saw something on the comm monitor.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Look for yourself.”

The Umbaran scanned the list of approved frequencies and transmission channels.

“You’re right, it’s not on the list.”

“Where’s it going?”

“Not strong enough to be anything but local. It could be piggybacking on another carrier wave—but it could also be nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The Umbaran gave her a superior look.

“It’s possible it could be some kind of natural occurrence.”

Taskien gestured at the monitor.

“That’s an awful lot of traffic for a natural occurrence. And it’s coming from nearby.”

“Fine,” Ene said. “I’ll call it in. We should split up and see if we can trace it. Start with the conference rooms on this side and I’ll get the other two.”

“Understood,” Taskien replied.

Taking her monitor, she began sweeping through the Lava conference room. The signal didn’t show much change until she reached the opposite wall. It was stronger in the direction of the Magma room and a series of living quarters separated from the conference rooms by a small atrium and kitchenette.

Taskien moved towards the Magma room and was surprised to see a lone, stern-faced guard on watch by the door. He wasn’t one she recognized; must have come in with the ambassador’s detail.

“I need to sweep that room,” she told him.

“I can’t allow that,” he replied

Taskien frowned, checking the schedule. Though they were later finishing their sweep, she didn’t think anything was scheduled for these rooms this late. Ten seconds later she confirmed her suspicion.

“There’s nothing in here. What’s going on?” Taskien demanded. “I’m calling this in.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” the guard advised.

“Or what?” Taskien answered, fire in her eyes. “You better have a good reason for keeping me from finishing this sweep.”

“I have my orders,” the guard answered levelly. “They don’t include granting you access to the conference room.”

“Sure you do,” Taskien shot back skeptically. “That’s why nobody in the security suite knows about this. Tell you what, let’s see how tough you are in two minutes when the security team arrives to clear and secure that room against unauthorized activity.”

The guard’s scowl deepened.

“It’s authorized.”

“You’re real funny,” Taskien said, whipping out her blaster suddenly and leveling it at him before he could react. “Here’s my authorization. What the kriff is going on here?”

The guard was unperturbed by the sight of the blaster.

“If you don’t want to spend the rest of your career on assignments investigating Hutt sausage factories, I suggest you put that away—now.”

“Explain it to the security team when they get here,” Taskien said.

The door to the conference room cracked open.

“Is there a problem?” a surly voice asked from within.

“Only if there’s unauthorized activity going on in there that Republic Intel wasn’t aware of.”

“Intel was informed,” the voice growled back. “Who the kriff are you?”

“Intel,” Taskien shot back. “And I wasn’t informed.”

“Obad, what’s going on?” a higher, more civilized male voice asked from within.

“Sorry, sir,” the gruff voice answered. “Minor disturbance. Just a spook poking her nose around. I’ll get rid of her.”

“Allow me, Obad,” the more cultured voice replied. “I think I might be able to clear this up.”

The door to the conference room opened fully to reveal Ambassador Rayees standing there in formal evening attire. He took in Taskien and her brandished blaster but betrayed no reaction, befitting a poised diplomat.

Behind him, Taskien saw several other people there, people she recognized as some of the mining representatives, as well as a couple others from the ambassador’s entourage.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, I don’t think you’ll need that. . . ,” the ambassador remarked, referring to her blaster.

Taskien hastily holstered it.

“My apologies,” she said, caught completely by surprise. “I didn’t realize—it wasn’t on the schedule.”

“And intentionally so,” the ambassador replied smoothly. “Sometimes, diplomats need opportunities to talk without formalities—off the record.”

“I see,” Taskien replied.

“No need to worry,” Rayees told her. “Come in, please.”

Taskien cautiously entered the room, slipping past a dour-looking guard. Several beings sitting around a central ebony-black table swiveled in fancy repulsor chairs to face her. None of them looked particularly happy to see her, but judging by the mostly-drained bottles of pricy Alderaan Ruge Liqueur and Polanis Red alongside empty plates strewn with remnants of a fine repast, they’d been well-entertained before her unexpected arrival. “Gentlemen, no need to worry,” Rayees assured them. “Just one of our entourage coming to check the room. I believe our business is done here anyway, and I’m afraid we’ll have to seek further refreshments elsewhere.”

The mining representatives wordlessly nodded and filed out without a word to Rayees and Taskien. The door hissed closed behind them.

“Satisfied, Agent?” the ambassador asked.

“I think so,” Taskien said slowly. “Do you mind my asking why this wasn’t part of the official negotiations?”

“Certainly. In my profession, it’s helpful to find ways to ease the tension and help people come to an agreement. Food, drink, entertainment, less scrutiny—all of these things are relaxing.”

He poured two more glasses of the Polanis Red with the remnants of the last bottle. Taking one in his hand, he offered the other to her. Waving at his guard, he signaled the man to exit, which he did—unhappily.

“May I?”

Taskien frowned at it.

“I usually don’t drink on duty,” she said.

His smile broadened.

“See? Now we’re getting somewhere. When do you drink on duty, Agent. . .?”

“Taskien. And only when the situation requires it.”

Rayees gave her a sly smile.

“I think the VIP you are tasked with protecting could specify such a situation, right?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I suppose,” she said. “But it would have to be for a good reason.”

“As it turns out, I have such a reason!”

He extended his hand with the glass again and she took it.

“The negotiations were a success. Two of the larger corporations have agreed to assist the Republic in exchange for some minor concessions.”

“That easily?” Taskien asked.

He spread his hands broadly with a grin.

“I can be quite persuasive, especially as a son of Orin,” he told her. “The concessions will barely cost the Republic anything. It turns out that we all want the same things—peace and good business in the Greater Javin.”

“I can drink to that,” Taskien answered, taking a sip of the Polaris Red. “Success for the Republic rarely comes cheap to these days.

It was warm and smooth, but with a powerful bite at the end. A good vintage. Rayees nodded and drank as well.

“Smart, thorough, loyal, and patriotic,” the ambassador said. “All good qualities in an agent.”

Taskien didn’t let the praise go to her head.

“Essential qualities in an agent,” she replied.

“Sharp, too,” the ambassador remarked. “What brought you here, Agent Taskien?”

“We detected an unauthorized carrier wave. We thought it might have been a transmitter of some kind.”

“Nothing of the sort,” the ambassador told her. “We were enjoying some entertainment—a local theatrical broadcast.”

“I see.”

Taskien doubted it was anything quite like that, judging by the brief encounters with the miners she’d had. He shrugged helplessly.

“I can get you the logs if you like. Nothing as refined as Calamarian opera, but if it helps them relax and negotiate, I’ll happily view it.”

The man leaned against the table casually, taking another sip of his wine.

“Will that be all, or is there more you’re after, Agent?”

His stance, the tone in his voice—it was all wrong. Taskien froze momentarily in disbelief, then recovered quickly.

“Excuse me? I’m just doing my job.”

“Then I believe your obligations are satisfied,” he answered. “But your job is also to see to my safety.”

“And?”

“Oh come now, Agent. Do I need to remark that you’re sharp as well as beautiful for you to take the hint?”

Taskien scowled.

“Wouldn’t that be. . . inappropriate?”

His eyebrows rose.

“I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. That was not my intent. Quite the opposite in fact.”

“I didn’t come here to be comfortable,” Taskien said stiffly.

“At least be open to the idea,” Rayees answered. “I certainly am. It’s a long way from home on this rock, but we could at least enjoy ourselves. I’d request you for a special assignment—involving another bottle of Polaris red and Talusian mussels in my quarters.”

Now Taskien allowed herself a smile, but her eyes weren’t in it. She set down the glass.

“It’s a good offer,” she told him. “Probably works on a lot of women. But I don’t crack that easily.”

“This isn’t a test,” the ambassador replied. “I would love to celebrate with you tonight.”

“I bet you would,” Taskien answered. “But this isn’t one negotiation you’re going to win.”

She turned and walked out of the room, inwardly trying to shake the dirty feeling from her shoulders.

“A pity,” he called out. “I won over the miners for the Republic, but failed to win you over to me. I’m afraid I’ll consider this evening overall unsatisfying.”

Taskien didn’t even break stride, but turned over her shoulder with a smirk on her face for a parting shot.

“You should consider the satisfaction of a job well done.”

With that, she strode away and let the door close behind her. Despite her seemingly cool exterior, her hands were shaking as she walked away. The ambassador had been charming—disarming even—and while his shallow solicitation was both inappropriate and disgusting—she had felt unnerved by him. The man was hardly a worthy representative of the Republic—and she suspect that those “minor concessions”—weren’t quite as incidental as he framed them. That and the fact that negotiations were happening outside of the official sessions implied something sleazy was happening. She was so distracted that she ran into the soldier coming down the hallway toward her. Taskien jumped as she looked up and saw him. It was the ARC clone trooper, Alpha-28.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “You startled me, that’s all.”

She walked off quickly before he could reply.

“What are you doing out here? Nobody’s supposed to be in this section.”

“Just doing a comm sweep,” Taskien assured him, remembering her original purpose for being in this side of the resort. “I’ll be done soon.”

“By yourself?” he said with a scowl.

“My partner’s just down the hallway,” Taskien told him, noting with relief out of the corner of her eye that Ene had just turned into view. “There.”

“All right then,” the ARC said.

“And what are you doing here?” Taskien asked, recovering quickly.

“You’re late for shift change,” he remarked. “I was sitting around ops with nothing else to do, so they sent me to check on you. Didn’t want to use the comlinks or it’d mess up any scans you were doing.”

“Sorry,” Taskien told him. “We’ll finish up and be done soon.”

He seemed satisfied with that and left. Taskien turned to Ene.

“Did you find anything on that signal?”

“I followed it for a little while, but it cut off before I could get a good trace,” Ene said. “You?”

Taskien shook her head.

“Nothing for me.”

Ene scowled.

“Let’s finish this and get back.”

“I owe you one,” Taskien told her. “Get me the data from your monitor and I’ll file the report with all the frequencies and signal in our daily check-in. Maybe the brains over in Coruscant can make something out of the partial.”

Ene nodded and they quickly finished their sweep. They didn’t notice the ARC had lingered, keeping a watch on them from just out of view. As much as he knew the other Republic personnel would be an obstacle for him when the time came for his true mission, he had no desire to see them harmed or taken advantage of. They were loyal people who normally were on his side.

What Alpha-28 hadn’t let on was that he’d heard the entire conversation between the ambassador and the agent—as well as the negotiations before. He’d heard Rayees try to seduce the agent—and he’d heard Rayees telling the miners that unofficially the Republic would be happy to secure lucrative shipping deals for the two biggest mining companies that would bankrupt the others. He’d heard the ambassador promise that the Republic would turn a blind eye to the use of forced labor—slave labor—if the miners would help them. He’d heard about the promised kickbacks, including land and credits, to Rayees after the deal was finalized.

Alpha-28 was no idealist. If the Republic opted to negotiate such deals out of realpolitik in order to help win the war, he had no principled objection to it. However, this business of skirting the official negotiations to deal under the table smelled bad. If it leaked, the Republic would look ineffectual and corrupt. Not only that, but it exposed Rayees as a man whose scruples were few and loose. A man who would bend the rules and sell out others for wealth. The fact that Rayees made dirty side deals didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that the man was interested in self-gain. Not that he needed further justification to carry out his mission, but hearing that conversation made him feel a lot better about it. That was always a plus.


 * Coruscant, two hours later

It was late on Coruscant, too, but despite the hour, the fact that General Ram Venasee was still in his office was not unusual. Plans and diagrams for the latest deployments to Muunilist occupied his desktop holoprojector, and he appeared to be intently studying them. Of course, those had nothing to do with what on his personal datapad, the encrypted one with the privacy mode written in an old Iktotchi script. That was an entirely different matter. His door chime sounded with a particular combination that only his hand-selected personal aide had. Nevertheless, the general checked the holocam to confirm he was alone before admitting him.

“What is it, Malcolm?” he asked.

Malcolm, a burly human with a receding hairline and bushy, dark eyebrows set in a permanent scowl, didn’t even enter the room beyond just enough to ensure the door sealed behind him.

“Latest transmission received from Orin.”

“And?”

The taciturn aide’s face betrayed no expression.

“Nothing of note about the ambassador. However, Republic Intelligence was alerted to an unauthorized carrier wave.”

Rayees scrutinized his aide’s expression, his eyes searching for more details.

“Did they have the full frequency?”

“Just a partial, but Intel will be looking into it.”

The general was surprisingly calm, given the circumstances.

“That complicates matters. Was there anything else from our operative?”

“The only thing reported was Rayees conducting unscrupulous side deals.”

“Enough to end him?”

“Given the situation, probably not. There was deniability.”

“Timetable on the strike?”

“None—but at the rate negotiations are concluding they might finish early.”

The general was silent for a moment, variables and probabilities calculating in his head. The conclusion took only seconds to reach.

“Activate the backup plan.”

If Malcolm gave any hints of disagreement, he was wise enough to not show it.

“Understood. It’ll be messier.”

Venasee was grim as he addressed his aide.

“I’d prefer to stop Rayees before he can knife us at the negotiating table. Our first try did not succeed. Our next one must.”


 * Orin, five hours later

Running her hands through her hair, Taskien blearily entered the resort’s lower-level gym. It had been a very long shift, full of drudgery, boredom, and investigating a number of potentially troubling rumors as they were called in—the sort that demanded attention but in 99% of the cases ended up being nothing. She had pulled a double shift today, but despite being tired, still couldn’t quite fall asleep when she had gone back to her room. Figuring that a work-out might help her unwind and relax enough so that she could find sleep, she had changed into maroon workout attire and made her way to the facilities provided for staff and aides—the diplomats themselves had their own for their exclusive use. To her surprise, she was not the gym’s only occupant at 0420 local time. The ARC was there also, and clearly had been for at least a little while, judging by the moderate amount of sweat glistening on his skin and soaking through his shirt. The soldier was snapping out pull-ups in a quick rhythm, his teeth clenched in exertion.

“Not too early for the gym?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he replied in between repetitions.

Taskien gave no reply as she found a set of hand weights and started limbering up. Rolling her neck slowly to one side, she sighed as it let out a very satisfying series of cracks as the tension she’d been storing there was popped loose. Taskien continued stretching, then began alternating lifts and curls. Soon, sweat was beading against the back of her neck, her arms beginning to burn with the repetitions. She kept at it, pumping out the frustration pent up inside her system with each motion. Switching it up after several minutes of sustained exercise, she found a mat and began working through Echani forms. She’d picked up the martial art as part of her intelligence training and found its methods and movements useful for calming herself.

“Echani fighting techniques,” the ARC trooper observed aloud, breaking her concentration. “Is that typical for an intelligence agent?”

“Actually, it is,” Taskien said, not skipping a beat as she flowed from a defensive stance into a quick flurry of jabs and chops, her hands knifing through the air in front of her. “Guess they wanted us to be able to defend ourselves if we got into a situation without a blaster.”

Alpha-28 observed her for a couple more seconds, then nodded and returned to his own workout, squatting one-hundred-fifty kilos at a steady, measured pace. He was sweaty and tired, and very ready to call it quits. Nevertheless, he persisted through his regimen, leaving his muscles quivering and the trooper gasping for breath. He checked his chrono. It was nearly 0600 and he was on duty at 0700. Just enough time to return to his quarters one level down, shower, and eat something quickly before his shift began. Mopping at his arms, neck, and face with a towel, the ARC nodded politely at Taskien and then headed for the gym’s door.

At that moment, the main power cut out suddenly, plunging them into near-darkness with only the dim glow of the emergency lighting. They both froze, alert and vigilant for any sign of trouble. All was quiet for several tense seconds.

“Well, that just got more interesting,” Taskien whispered quietly, moving to his side.

Alpha-28’s mind was already whirling with possibilities and probabilities clicking into place. He moved up to the gym door, flattening himself against the door frame to peer through the recessed window cut into it. Something was definitely wrong here. There wasn’t nearly enough activity for a sudden power loss, which meant. ..

“We’re under attack,” he said.

“What makes you say that?”

Alpha-28 thumbed his comlink and was met by the squeal of static. He thumbed it off again quickly.

“So it seems,” Taskien agreed. “What’s the plan?”

“Do you have a blaster?” he asked.

“Not on me,” she told him.

“Then we head back to my quarters,” Alpha-28 told her. “I have a couple.”

“And if they find us?”

Alpha-28 flashed a short, sardonic smile.

“If there’s not too many, we take them down and get their blasters.”

“They’ll probably have night-vision gear if they cut the power,” Taskien pointed out.

“Then we’ll carefully take their blasters,” Alpha-28 said, hefting a five-kilo hand-weight. “Let’s go.”

The gym door slid open, and Alpha-28 slid out into the hallway. It was quiet and empty, with only the muted glow of the emergency lights to greet them. The ARC was a black silhouette as he moved down the passageway, heading towards the diplomatic entourage quarters.

Suddenly, he flattened himself against the wall, ducking back into the recess leading to a maintenance closet. Taskien quickly joined him. The ARC held up three fingers in warning.

“I’m high, you low,” he whispered.

Taskien barely had time to process his words before the trooper lashed out with a violent upswing, the hand-weight colliding with an audible crunch into the jaw of a dark, armed figure that had been silently advancing towards them. The person cried out, stumbling back. Alpha-28 lunged forward, sidestepping the first person and planting a vicious snap kick into the second intruder. The individual doubled over and as the third man brought his weapon to bear on the ARC, the trooper grabbed the man he kicked and used him as a shield to absorb the three bright blue shots. Then, shoving his sentient shield aside, Alpha-28 twisted around and pitched the hand-weight at the shooter, catching him in the face. Lunging forward, the ARC rammed a fist into the man’s throat and slammed a knee into his stomach as he doubled over. He was just about to secure the man’s blaster when he realized that a fourth intruder was aiming a weapon at him. A blaster whined and Alpha-28 braced himself for impact, knowing he wouldn’t miss at that range. Instead, however, cerulean light flashed over his shoulder, stippling smoldering craters into the fourth assailant’s torso. The ARC looked over to see Taskien holding a blaster at the ready, having just gunned down his would-be killer.

“Thought you said there were only three,” she quipped.

“I meant ‘attack in three,’” Alpha-28 retorted sarcastically.

“Odd way of saying thank you,”

“Thanks.”

The man underneath him stirred and made a move for his blaster. Alpha-28 brought his foot down on his wrist, shattering it. The man choked out a scream through his damaged throat, and then the ARC picked up the weight and clobbered him hard enough to render him unconscious.

The trooper quickly relieved him of his blaster, night-vision gear, glowrod, and comlink, and Taskien followed suit. They deposited the bodies in the maintenance closet, and then sealed it shut.

“We’ll come back for them once we have the facility secured,” Alpha-28 said, pulling on the night-vision goggles. “Let’s go.”

Taskien breathlessly followed him.

Ahead of them, the passageway branched out, heading one way towards their quarters and the other way towards the main event rooms and diplomatic branch.

“There’s probably at least one more team in the entourage area,” Taskien pointed out. “We need to stop them.”

“You do that,” Alpha-28 said. “I’m going to stop them from getting to the diplomats.”

She nodded.

“Watch your back,” she told him. “I’ll bring up whatever help I can.”

Alpha-28 turned and headed off the other direction, leaving Taskien to head down towards where all the Republic entourage were quartered. With any luck, some of the agents there were still alive, and if she could get to them before the intruders did, she’d have a chance of getting back to Alpha-28 before he was gunned down.

Taskien heard blasterfire up ahead and quickened her pace. She blanched as she passed by a room full of dead agents, fresh rivulets of blood streaming down their faces and bodies. Rounding the corner, she nearly ran into another four-man team.

The first one whipped out at her with a vicious backhand, but Taskien ducked under it, bringing her blaster to bear. She was about to fire when her target kicked out, clipping her shoulder and knocking the blaster away. It was his turn to try and fire from too close, though, and she slid to the floor, kicking out to catch him on the kneecap. The man cried out and Taskien scissored his legs out from under him with her own, toppling him to the floor. She rolled over him to avoid a stuttering of fire from two more attackers, oddly silent and quiet. Slugthrowers, she realized. Much quieter and harder to notice than blasters.

Then she ran out of time for thoughts as their weapons tracked towards her. Taskien had pulled the glowrod off her belt as she rolled and activated it, shining the light in their faces. The luminance was enough to temporarily blind them, the slugs sizzling over her head from wild shots, and she kept rolling until she was in striking distance. Kicking out, she sent one man colliding into the other. Leaping up, Taskien ducked under a haymaker and rammed an uppercut into the man’s solar plexus, following it with a palmstrike to the jaw. Her target staggered and she threw him over her hip to land on the deck with enough force to drive the wind from him. Continuing her throwing motion into a three-point roll, she sprung upwards with a heel kick that caught the third man in the face. Taskien came up, clamped onto his firing arm, and swung it towards the fourth man. She forced his fingers to pull the trigger, sending metallic shards lancing into the intruder, before driving an elbow into her unwitting assistant, putting him out of the action. Sensing motion behind her, she whirled and ducked away from the first man’s shots before scooping up the slugthrower from the third intruder and using it to shoot back. In his prone position, he had no chance of avoiding her fire and collapsed with a gurgle as the slugs pierced him.

The third man stirred from the ground and Taskien quickly restrained him, binding his arms, legs, and mouth with belts snagged from the other bodies. There’d be time to question him later. She retrieved their weapons and then advanced into the quarters, rapping on each door in turn.

“Srivas? Jonna? Dorian?” she called.

“Who is it? What’s going on out there?”

“It’s Taskien,” she replied. “We’re under attack. I need your help.”

“Door’s sealed,” came a hushed reply. “Comms and power are out.”

“Kriff,” she swore.

Returning to the bodies, she soon found that one of them had a security override spike on his belt. Taskien grimaced. So that was their game. Lock everyone into their rooms and shoot them down one group at a time. She’d been lucky that she and Alpha-28 had been in the gym; there wasn’t a lock on that door.

A few minutes later, she’d rounded up the surviving Republic diplomatic personnel, many of whom had been sound asleep, and distributed what weapons she’d collected, prioritizing those who didn’t already have any. Unfortunately, none of the clone troopers who had been in their quarters had survived. They had been stationed closest to the event rooms—and thus the first to be attacked. Taskien thought back to Alpha-28, remembered he was still out there alone, and then hastily finished distributing the weapons taken from the intruders and dead clones. If she hurried, she might be able to keep at least one more soldier alive.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Now wait a minute,” Srivas replied. “We need to get comms and power back up, figure out what’s going on, how many of them there are. We can’t just go charging blindly into the dark.”

“It’s worked for me so far,” Taskien said. “Another soldier was headed up to the event area to get to the ambassador. You work on those other things. I’m going to go help him.”

Srivas looked as if he was about to make an argument out of it, so Taskien turned and walked off before he could finish the statement. Actions spoke louder than words.

“Anyone who’s coming with me, do what I say, and move out,” she snapped.

Three other agents fell in behind her, clearly shaken from the sudden attack, but also filled with grim determination. Taskien was grateful for the help. Despite her bravado and challenging words to Srivas, she hadn’t exactly wanted to find her way back to Alpha-28 alone. Assuming he was still alive, of course.

“How do we find him?” one of the agents asked.

“He’ll be the one at the head of the trail of bodies,” she answered.

They advanced cautiously, weapons at the ready. They entered a kitchen, where they found four bodies with wounds in their torsos and feet. Taskien surveyed the scene for a second and realized that Alpha-28 had hid under a heating unit to mask his thermal signature, and then shot the intruders in their feet to take them down before finishing them off with neat-double shots to the center of mass. She silently admired his technique and moved on. They advanced through a series of service corridors before entering the main dining hall where she’d first met the ARC a few days earlier.

There were four bodies on the floor, and Taskien looked up to see that one of the overhead lighting elements was dangling crooked from one chain. She surmised that the ARC had hid up there, again masking his body heat with the still-warm lighting element and then gunned down the intruders from above. She advanced slowly, only to hear a sudden, sharp whisper.

“Get down!”

Taskien and the others complied quickly, but not fast enough. A brilliant lance of light pierced through one of the far windows overlooking the smoldering crater. It caught one of the agents in the head, sending him to the ground with a hole in his skull she could put three fingers into. He tumbled down and ended up facing her with a blank-eyed, lifeless scream. She stifled a gasp.

Someone rolled over beside her and she turned to bring her weapon to bear.

“It’s me,” Alpha-28 told her.

Recognizing the voice, she lowered her blaster.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked. “You should have shot on sight.”

“Odd way of saying hello,” he replied. “Good to see you again.”

“Seriously,” she said.

“Every member of the intruders was wearing black,” he said. “You’re wearing maroon.”

“Good thing I didn’t take one of their outfits to blend in then.”

“Good thing,” he answered tersely. “There’s a sniper out there that’s had me pinned down for the last five minutes. He shoots at everything that moves.”

“What’s the plan?” she asked.

Shooting and the occasional hand-to-hand scuffle were part of the job, part of her training. A sniper was far beyond what she was trained to deal with.

“I need a diversion,” he said. “Actually a couple.”

In a situation like this, Taskien was not about to argue with a trained soldier who had an idea of what he was doing. A team executing a less-than-perfect plan under pressure was better than being at cross-purposes.

“Tell me what to do,” she said.

The ARC passed out three blaster carbines that he’d been keeping tucked under his arm.

“Low-crawl to different points of the room,” he said. “Judging from his angle, sniper is probably a little below us, so if you hug the ground, he shouldn’t be able to hit you. Two of you, place the blasters on tables facing the window, aiming at approximately 45 degrees northward relative to the window face. Brace the stock with chairs and leave the trigger guard accessible from under the table. When I signal, fire the blasters from below the tables out from the window for at least twenty seconds. Then find new cover. The last man, keep watch for any other hostiles entering the room. Stay low.”

Taskien took the blaster and wordlessly complied. The plan was complex, and Alpha-28’s reassurances weren’t exactly enthusiastic, but she trusted that he had a stratagem in mind. Propping her blaster against the back of a chair, she prepared to awkwardly pull the trigger from where she was huddled under a black table. The ARC was no doubt having them fire like that to help them avoid getting hit, which she definitely appreciated, but there was also little chance of her bolts even getting close to the sniper. Then again, if he was positioned across the rim, Taskien doubted that the compact carbine, designed for close-quarters combat in a building or ship, would be much use against the sniper’s weapon.

She tensed, waiting in the dim light, hoping that Alpha-28 knew he what he was doing, and hoping even more that his supposition about the sniper not being able to hit them was correct.

“Fire!” he called out harshly.

Taskien pulled the trigger and the blaster spat hot fire. She heard the crashing of the giant panoramic window being blown into a thousand shards. A sudden updraft of hot air and volcanic gasses began issuing through the new rents as she and another agent blindly sprayed the window with blaster fire. She counted twenty silently as she pulled the trigger again and again. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a dark shape hurtle out through the shattered window, but then her table was hit by the sniper’s fire. The beam nearly burned through the ten-centimeter-thick stone, heating the polished stone of the underside red-hot. Taskien pulled her carbine down and scrambled away. The other agent firing his blaster similarly found new cover.

“What now?” he asked.

Taskien looked around, but aside from the other agent crouched behind a minibar watching the other door, there was nobody else in the room. Alpha-28 was gone.

“Where’d he go?” the other shooter asked her.

It was then that she realized what they had been serving as a diversion for. Looking out at the huge window, now shattered in two dozen places, she realized the Alpha-28 had jumped out of it—and into the smouldering volcanic crater, assuming he had survived the fall.

“Out there,” she said tersely, shaking her head slightly at the insanity.

The other agent eyed her with the same fatalistic incredulity she herself was experiencing but hiding more successfully.

The first sensation Alpha-28 felt was the heat. Incredible heat made the air shimmer and ripple, and the hot air seared his lungs as he gasped for breath. In full armor, with an insulated body glove and a helmet with enviroseals, the heat and fumes would have been a barely-noticeable inconvenience. Without them, every step took him deeper into an almost-literal hell. However, his plan was not entirely suicidal—he hadn’t jumped to sure self-immolation. Thermal analysis of the crater had revealed that while its core hot spots and seeping gas jets could spike up to 300 degrees, most of the rock was closer to 70 or 80 degrees. With a torn-up and water-soaked table cloth wrapped around his head, and the thick gloves, boots, and pants he’d appropriated from the mercenaries, he thought he had a reasonable chance. His clothes steamed as he made his way, and sparks and embers scorched holes in his outfits, burning his skin when they made contact. With every movement, he knew he was perilously exposed if the sniper decided to look down, but he made good progress at first, dodging piles of embers and roaring fires as he moved from cover to cover.

That changed about twenty steps in when he stepped on a loose volcanic rock and nearly lost his footing. A jet of superheated gas spewed up, scalding his leg. Alpha-28 gritted back a scream, and pulled away quickly, but the damage was done. The burn made every step an agonizing experience, but as he saw the sniper’s laser lance through the sky above him, he knew he had to keep going. People’s lives were at stake.

Pushing forward, he scrambled around a boulder, flattening himself against it. Light from the fires flickered around him, making him dangerously exposed if the sniper was to look down, even as he moved from cover to cover. So far, there wasn’t any indication that the sniper had seen him yet. Another laser flashed out, piercing the sky above him. Alpha-28 hoped that nobody had been hit, but it at least allowed him to get a fix on the sniper’s position. There was a little observation lounge on the far side of the crater, one of several that were set up as rest areas and secluded enclosures for those who wished to walk through the sheltered walkway that ran around the burning crater, and the sniper had apparently selected the site for his nest.

Alpha-28 waited until a sputtering fire near him died down so that the motion wouldn’t draw the sniper’s attention, and then darted through a field of smoldering fires to a position near the opposing crater wall. Flames licked at his clothes and boots, and the smoke was enough to leave him coughing for air. Thankfully the far crater wall wasn’t too steep, but he still had to climb up a good ten meters of seventy-degree grade. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, he started up, only to slide back down.

The ARC quickly realized that the terrain was a thick layer of soft volcanic dirt, gravel, and ash, mixed with sputtering mineral fires. While it had been great at cushioning his fall when he’d jumped out of the promontory window, it would also be very difficult to climb. Again, he regretted the lack of armor, as he was missing its built-in grapple. The only advantage was that the crater wall was comparatively cooler than the base of the crater, and less exposed to the sniper.

Gritting his teeth, he found a fairly solid rock protruding through the dirt a meter and a half above him and jumped up to grab it, pulling himself up as he shimmied through the dirt and ash. Reaching up to another rock, he found yet another handhold for the next step in his slow crawl. His burned leg throbbed with each motion. Burned, blackened, and wearied by the torturous journey, it was all Alpha-28 could do to keep advancing. He’d climbed about four meters when his hand, trembling and scorched, slipped from the tenuous handhold. The ARC slid ignominously down in a cloud of dust back to the base of the crater.

He froze, expecting the sniper to shoot him right then and there. However, the sniper was apparently focused on another target, firing towards the promenade again. Alpha-28 started to head back towards the crater to begin the arduous climb anew, but realized that with the thick layer of soft ash and dirt, he would never make it up. The sniper fired again, and his frustration grew. Here he was grubbing around in the dirt while people were possibly dying. Then he saw something that completely changed his outlook on the situation—the snub nose of a barrel protruding from the observation box.

The sniper was close to the window of the observation lounge, probably to avoid hitting one of the window frames if he was positioned farther back. While it increased his ease of shifting his firing angle, it definitely made him more exposed. The ARC suspected that the compromise was likely due to the sniper being sure he was just providing overwatch and not directly engaged. Time to make him pay for that decision.

The ARC brought his rifle to bear and flipped the selector switch to full auto. He squinted at the floor of the observation lounge and gauged it to be about half a meter thick, just enough to keep the heat out. Most of the underside wasn’t even solid metal, but some kind of ceramic insulator honeycombed in between a durasteel lattice. Should be relatively easy to punch through—most ceramic insulators had high porosity to reduce their thermal conductivity, and the kinetic energy of the blaster bolts would do far more damage to the material than just a few hundred degrees of steady heat. Alpha-28 aimed down his sights about a meter back from the window, sighting in on the underside of the booth’s protrusion.

The sniper’s rifle shifted slightly and Alpha-28 adjusted quickly, then squeezed the trigger. Hot red light spat from his weapon, quickly shearing through the insulating tiles. The durasteel glowed hot from where he struck it, but the insulation and floor material gave way within a few shots, allowing him to punch through and hopefully hit whoever was inside. Figuring that the sniper was lying prone to fire like any professional would, Alpha-28 hoped he hadn’t had enough time to roll aside.

The protruding barrel didn’t move, and Alpha-28 then began clambering up the crater wall again. This time, he approached from the opposite side of the observation booth, and the going was slightly easier. Still, he was caked with ash and burned from hidden hot spots as he climbed up the dozen meters. He felt encouraged, however, that the sniper had not fired since his own barrage, allowing him the hope of having killed the shooter outright.

Getting a grip on the metal frame of the observation booth, Alpha-28 hauled himself upright, flattened between the crater wall and the protruding observation wall. There was an abandoned sniper rifle, a pack, and a charred hole in the floor, but no body. The ARC stiffened. Either he hadn’t killed the man and the sniper had escaped, or there had been more than one of them, possibly a spotter. Neither situation was good. Contrary to what was shown on the holovids, a one-man intrusion was incredibly risky and not to be attempted in most circumstances. Especially without a technological advantage like armor against an enemy who knew you were coming. The observation booth itself was rather light on cover inside, aside from a couple benches and chairs, along with a potted plant. With limited room to maneuver and little cover, charging into the booth was suicide. Instead, he continued to climb upward, aided by the fact that the crater wall at this weight was rocky. A heavy doorframe between the observation booth and the rest of the gallery kept him obscured from vision. Unfortunately, with the tinted windows, he couldn’t easily see into the gallery, whereas the reverse was not true. Climbing into the roof of the observation gallery, Alpha-28 realized that he was running out of time. He needed to back at the main resort, cleaning up the mercenaries and securing the ambassador. Or killing the ambassador if he could find a way to do it without being implicated. This was a costly and painful distraction—one that demanded his unique skills—but nonetheless an impediment to his primary mission.

Climbing up the rest of the way to the top of the crater, he began looking for another approach to the observation gallery. Looking around, he found a sensor relay mounted nearby a maintenance hatch, along with an emergency kit likely placed there in case someone was stranded. There were two oxygen masks, fire extinguisher, and a fibra-rope, three things which he found extremly useful. These, he could work with.

The ARC figured that the hatch had likely been secured against intrusion, or at least was being covered. So first, he needed a diversion. Grabbing the oxygen mask, he opened the hatch gingerly and rolled the mask inside, keeping it in sight. Aiming down, he sent a single blaster bolt into it, igniting it in a fireball. Then, he grabbed the fire extinguisher, turned it on, and flung it into the observation lounge through the gap the sniper had been firing through.

Figuring that was a good enough distraction, he took a running start and jumped it into space, swinging down on the fibrarope, having secured it to the sensor relay first. Spinning around in mid-air, the ARC shot out one of the big window-walls of the walkway and crashed through it courtesy of the down swing. Rolling into the cover formed by the entrance to a maintenance closet, the ARC saw a silhouette shift towards him. He fired quickly, but the shadow slinked away, returning fire. Hot green light splattered against the door frame, sending sparks and smoke flying. Alpha-28 fired back, but it was clear neither side held an advantage.

Cursing at how quickly the other had reacted, he knew he needed to break this stalemate quickly. Turning to the maintenance closet, he opened it one-handed while laying down suppressing fire with the other. Finding what he needed, he ducked back into the closet, weapon at the ready. Quickly tying a pair of cleaning solvent canisters together with the remainder of his rope, he peered around the corner again, only to duck back before two blasts struck the frame, partially burning through. Instead, Alpha-28 heaved the improvised grenade out at the shooter, then shot it with his blaster. Corrosive smoke poured forth and a silhouette came staggering out in seconds, coughing and wheezing. The ARC put him down with a quick double-shot in the chest. Securing the second oxygen mask over his face, he waited for the smoke to clear, then advanced. The acrid fumes burned at his eyes, making it painful for him to visually check his surroundings as he moved up. The ARC kicked away the blaster carbine from the dead man he had shot, sweeping the area around him. He heard coughing from the doorway leading to the maintenance hatch he had considered earlier, and rounded the corner only to see a woman propped up against the wall.

She was wearing dark clothing and her equipment marked her as a mercenary fighter. Judging by her forehead protrusions, feline features, and tufted burgundy hair, she was Zygerrian. This one was clearly wounded judging by her glassy eyes and severe, blackened burns on her chin, throat, and sternum. Blood oozed from the wounds and despite the blaster pistol in her hand, it was clear she was no threat. Alpha-28 kicked the weapon away nonetheless, keeping his own blaster aimed at her. Dark eyes lolled up at him and the mercenary wheezed.

“Who hired you?” Alpha-28 asked.

Every breath was clearly a gasping, wheezing effort for the wounded fighter, yet somehow she managed to spit out two words with impotent malice.

“Kriff you.”

“You’re dying,” Alpha-28 said. “You’re going to die choking on your own blood, with every last painful thought a reminder that you failed in your mission. The ambassador is safe and your teams eliminated. I might be able to stabilize you long enough for the medical teams to get here, but I’m not going to do that without some information.”

The Zygerrian stared up at him malevolently. Despite being at death’s door, her defiance was unabated.

“Rather. . . die. . . free.”

Alpha-28 decided to try another tack. Looking over her equipment, he realized she wasn’t carrying a larger weapon like the other mercenary he’d killed, and the placement of her wounds meant that she was likely the sniper, wounded when he’d fired on the booth from below.

“You’re the sniper,” he said. “Must say, I wasn’t impressed. One kill? Two? A real marksman would have cleaned the whole room in the time you had. You never even saw me coming.”

The Zygerrian’s eyes widened with hatred.

“Kriff. . . you!” she hissed, the last word a faint gurgle.

Her head lolled to one side and her eyes stared off as her body stiffened. Alpha-28 checked her pulse, but that merely confirmed what he had already known: the sniper was dead. On the one hand, that was good—now he just had to get back to the resort and make sure the story he’d pitched to her was actually true.

Traversing down the long corridor that led around the rim of the crater back to the conference center, he kept a close eye out for trouble—like the two booby traps he’d detected and disarmed on his way back—and his weapon steady. The pain from his burns throbbed and ached, but he ignored it for now. His first priority was the ambassador. He had to balance the need to move quickly against the need for caution.

Finding himself at the door that led into the main center, the ARC checked around the corner before making his entry. He heard movement and flattened himself against the door frame, ducking into the shadows. It opened to reveal Taskien and three other agents with weapons at the ready; they didn’t initially see him. The ARC allowed himself a small smile—the fact they were here was a good indication for the overall situation. He quickly snapped his weapon up and called out the daily passcode.

“Cresh-53, Cresh-53.”

The other agents flinched in surprise, instantly pivoting towards him.

“Stand down,” Taskien told her companions, and they lowered their blasters.

She turned to Alpha-28.

“Jeez, way to scare us,” she said. “We might’ve shot you.”

“Sorry,” Alpha-28 replied. “Force of habit.”

“Sneaking around like some kind of specter is not a healthy habit among friends,” she told him.

“So we’re friends now?”

The agent gave him a thin smile.

“Of sorts. Anyway, it’s over,” she informed him. “The ambassador is secure, all the hostiles are eliminated.”

The ARC heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m almost surprised to see you alive,” she said with a quirk of her eyebrow. “I thought you cooked yourself going after the sniper.”

“And yet I see you’re not still crouched down in the dining room hoping to not get picked off.”

Her lips twisted in a wry smile.

“Well, some of the other security teams joined us and when they didn’t take fire, we figured he’d either moved or been dealt with. We didn’t stick around to find out.”

“Her, actually,” Alpha-28 answered, feeling the fatigue he’d been ignoring start to wash over him.

“Excuse me?”

“The sniper was female. Zygerrian.”

“The Zygerrians are known supporters of the Confederacy,” she pointed out.

“She was a mercenary, no uniform or sign she was a CIS soldier,” Alpha-28 said. “Plenty of humans work for both sides too.”

“Point taken,” Taskien replied. “The area’s secure.”

Alpha-28 nodded. The adrenaline was starting to seep out of his system, but he wasn’t ready to fully stand down yet.

“What’s the next move?”

“We’ve called in for evacuation, of course,” Taskien told him. “Transport’s on its way, as soon as the storm clears. We’ll be getting out of here very quickly.”

“Good.”

He tried to shake off the sudden onset of weariness, but his body was thoroughly exhausted, after having exercised and then fought an extended battle. The soldier swayed lightly, then steadied himself.

“Hey, you don’t look so good,” Taskien said, catching him by the arm.

“Kind of a rough morning,” he quipped. “Bit warm.”

“I’ll say,” she replied. “There’s a triage station set up back at the infirmary, but it’ll be a little while until they can see you, unless you’re hit elsewhere.”

“It’s not bad,” he said. “There’s a medkit in my quarters.”

“Your hands and leg are burned. You should let me at least treat those.”

Alpha-28 started to voice an objection, but she gave him an insistent look.

“Least I can do for getting that sniper off of us.”

The intelligence agent signaled to the other agents and they headed back up the corridor. Taskien retrieved a small medkit and, peeling off the blackened gloves he’d been wearing, began cleaning off the burns. They were blistering and swollen, but the flesh wasn’t blackened. He’d recover within a few days. Dabbing bacta salve on his burned fingers, she gently but thoroughly coated all of the injured digits, then wrapped them in a couple layers of synthflesh bandages.

“Not the index finger,” Alpha-28 told her as she was working on his right hand.

“It won’t heal as well,” she said. “Don’t get this infected.”

“I might have to shoot someone,” he told her. “Don’t wrap it.”

Another time, another place, those words might have been spoken in jest, but not today. Taskien saw nothing but deadly seriousness in his eyes.

“You certainly live up to the reputation,” she remarked.

“What’s that?” he asked, feeling defensive and judged by how she’d said it.

“Extremely capable, highly-intelligent, loyal, obedient, respectful, self-sacrificing, even,” she said. “All the clone troopers have these attributes.”

“It’s who we are.”

Taskien was thoughtful as she took the blunt, creedal statement in and began treating his leg.

“The Republic’s lucky to have men like you,” Taskien said. “You’re exactly what we need right now, but some day—we’re going to have to figure out what to do with millions of men we literally created to fight for us.”

“Not my problem to worry about,” Alpha-28 retorted. “I’ll think about it when it happens.”

Her lips twisted into a wry smile.

“What happened to that legendary preparedness for all scenarios?”

The ARC frowned.

“It’s not exactly the same,” he replied. “Preparedness for combat, for any number of tactical scenarios, is much different than having a plan for life long-term.”

“And it’s not something you care to think about now?”

“No. It’d be a distraction.”

“From being the perfect soldier.”

“Exactly.”

“I understand,” she said. “You need to keep your focus on your mission. You need to not be distracted by thoughts of a potential future.”

“That’s right.”

“If it’s enough for you to have a cause to fight and die for, who am I to question that? Just remember that sometimes there’s more than accomplishing your mission.”

The ARC allowed himself a brief grin.

“Hard to beat the satisfaction of accomplishing a mission,” he said. “Especially one against the odds.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“You’re an ARC. Aren’t they all against the odds?”

“True,” he admitted.

She studied him for a moment.

“I think you’d never end up doing well outside of something like law enforcement or bounty hunting after the war,” she said. “You like the action too much.”

He shrugged.

“Do what you’re good at.”

“Not just the action, either,” she continued. “You like getting the drop on someone, appearing out of nowhere on them.”

Feeling distinctly like he was being placed under a microscope, Alpha-28 shifted in his seat.

“Maybe,” he said evasively.

“All the old legends and myths that have spooky monsters and specters never tell you how the monster feels about it,” Taskien said. “If they enjoy the sensation of the hunt.”

“So I’m a spooky monster?” Alpha-28 replied, starting to believe this conversation had taken a turn to the utter absurd.

Taskien considered.

“Not when you say it like that. ‘Spooky ghost,’ no. Specter, maybe,” she said. “The ghost that keeps the Republic’s enemies up at night, worried you’ll drop by for a visit.”

The image didn’t quite fit, but he found he didn’t mind it too much.

“I’ll take it.”

She finished wrapping up his leg.

“That’ll do,” she said. “Try not to over-exert yourself too much.”

“I’ll try,” he replied.

“Thanks again,” Taskien told him. “For covering us earlier, even though you nearly got cooked in the process. I’ve never known anyone that willing to sacrifice themselves for others before.”

“That’s who I am,” Alpha-28 replied gravely.

She folded her arms and nodded slightly.

“All right,” she told him. “I’m going to see if I can backtrace the comms we’ve found and figure out who these guys are, but call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Alpha-28 told her. “Good luck.”

“I’ll need it,” she replied, sauntering off.

Alpha-28 stared after her a minute. She was the first civilian—in a sense—that he’d had that long of conversation with. Most of the time, civilians were obstacles. And yes, Taskien was an intelligence operative and so not exactly a civilian, but she wasn’t exactly military either. She seemed interested in him beyond his professional capabilities, but he wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t sure what to do with that if she was. Most likely, they’d be getting off this rock soon and then he’d never see her again. He’d be sent to another battlefield, and she’d go to her next assignment. However, the clone trooper indulged brief mental flickers of possibilities until his mind suddenly snapped back to his duty and his mission, his original mission.

The ambassador was still alive, and would soon be evacuated. Alpha-28 realized that his window of opportunity was closing, but he had an idea on how to do it. First, though, he headed back to his quarters. Checking them thoroughly, he found them unmolested. This wing of the resort had been far from the main area and the mercenaries had no doubt intended to simply seal it off and ignore it to focus on priority targets. The ARC checked for surveillance devices and, finding none, quickly retrieved and activated his secure datapad, the one with the encrypted comlink to General Venasee. He punched in his secure encryption key and scanned his thumb over the biometric reader, waiting as the device established the connection. Finally, seconds later, an image of General Venasee appeared on the screen, overlaid with static.

“Report,” the Iktotchi officer said sternly.

“There was a mercenary attack, sir,” Alpha-28 informed him. “We barely held them off. Emergency evacuation is underway as soon as a storm lifts.”

“I know,” the general replied. “My ship just entered orbit. I’m here to personally oversee the evacuation. The ambassador?”

“Still alive, sir. I was still setting up disruptions and incidents when we were attacked.”

The general’s stern features furrowed into an even darker grimace.

“You should have taken advantage of the confusion to eliminate the ambassador. That would have been the perfect opportunity.”

“Sir, the ambassador was well-guarded. I couldn’t get to him, certainly not while making his death appear incidental.”

The general scowled.

“That is unfortunate. You have failed in your mission, Captain.”

Alpha-28 swallowed hard against the sinking feeling in his stomach caused by the officer’s rebuke.

“I was under the impression we had more time,” he said.

“So was I,” the general told him. “Nevertheless, things are progressing much more quickly than I anticipated. The window of opportunity has closed.”

A burst of inspiration hit Alpha-28.

“I can still accomplish the mission,” he said.

“How?”

“When will your ship get here?”

“My shuttle will land in forty minutes,” the general told him.

“I can deal with the ambassador as he prepares to leave,” Alpha-28 informed him. “Discreetly. His death will be easily blamed on the mercenaries.”

The general’s eyes narrowed.

“See to it then, Captain. The Republic is counting on you.”

“I won’t fail.”


 * Communication center

Taskien fiddled with the stolen comlink seized from a mercenary, then tossed it on the table and sighed. The device was plugged into a sophisticated tracing probe that was scouring its memory. Unfortunately, all the comm codes previously used were scrambled and encrypted. This was the last of the comlinks she’d been going through, and none of them had responded to her admittedly amateur attempts at slicing them. “This isn’t working,” she said.

“I told you it wouldn’t,” Srivas remarked, his voice dripping with reproach as he glanced over in her direction.

“I knew it was a longshot,” Taskien answered, leaning heavily on the table, looking around at the pile of comlinks in search of inspiration.

“Maybe comlinks aren’t the answer. Maybe we need to look at what comm frequencies were active in the general vicinity when the attack hit,” she offered.

Srivas rolled his eyes.

“We lost main power, remember?”

“Before that,” Taskien said.

“The mercenaries were likely operating on comm silence and communicating in person,” Srivas told her. “We didn’t detect any sudden flurry of comm traffic beforehand.”

“Of course not,” Taskien agreed. “That would have been as stupid as them announcing they were coming with fireworks and dancers. But. . .”

She trailed off, contemplating.

“They might have reported in that they had landed. Perhaps a short burst transmission was sent.”

“That’d be nearly impossible to pick up against the background noise,” Srivas objected.

“Unless we could filter out the storm’s background interference,” Taskien replied, turning to Jonna. “Is it possible?”

The Gotal communications specialist shrugged.

“I can try.”

“Do it,” Taskien said.

Jonna looked at Srivas for approval. The agent rolled his eyes, but nodded.

“Sampling current comm traffic and comparing it to transmission logs before the storm. Filtering those out. I have some recordings of the ambient storm noise; filtering those out also.”

The master display screen in the ready area shifted to display a smattering of audio waves.

“This is the hour before we lost power,” Jonna said.

The audio started playing, but all they heard was rumbling, crackling, and static pierced by an occasional squeal—the electromagnetic soundtrack of a volcanic dust storm.

“I don’t think this is helping,” Srivas interjected bluntly.

“Hang on,” Taskien told him. “We need to look for anomalies.”

She scanned the overlaid waveforms, then zeroed in on a series of small blips in the pattern that were a bit too concentrated to be random noise.

“What are those?”

Jonna moved the playback over to that section. More of the same storm-laced feedback and static greeted them, but there was an indistinct buzzing sound in the background.

“Can you narrow the filter for just those wavelengths?” Taskien asked.

A second later, the static had diminished greatly, and while there was still background rumbling and crackling from the storm, there was a distinguishably different audio tone. Unfortunately, it was complete gibberish.

“That could be anything,” Srivas pointed out.

“On the other hand, it could be a coded transmission.”

“It could be,” Srivas stressed the second word. “A remote possibility.”

“Perhaps not,” Taskien said. “Can you triangulate it?”

Jonna shook her head.

“We only store the aggregate monitored signals in backed up memory. The individual listening stations’ recordings were lost.”

“Kriff,” Taskien swore, bouncing a fist off her thigh in frustration.

“Wait,” Jonna suddenly piped up. “That frequency band is active again.”

Taskien’s head whipped around.

“Are you sure?”

The Gotal nodded.

“Has to be that one. Exact same frequency band.”

“Where?” Srivas asked.

“It’s coming from. . . inside the resort.”

“Narrow it down,” the lead agent said, then he turned to Taskien. “You might actually be onto something.”

“I just hope we aren’t too late to stop whoever it is,” Taskien answered worriedly.

“Looks it’s coming from the entourage staff quarters.”

“Whose quarters?” Srivas asked.

“Taskien, urgent call for you.”

The agent was distracted from hearing Jonna’s answer by the sudden call for her name, but the ready room’s comm chief was beckoning her over.

“Secure call from Coruscant. Specifically for you, and you alone.”

He ushered her towards the privacy booth in corner of the room, admitting her inside, and then activating the privacy screen that would prevent anyone outside the booth from listening in or watching. Taskien entered her identification code and a few minutes later, a small holo of her contact from Cherki’s Café resolved into view. He looked even more dour than usual.

“This is an unexpected surprise,” she told him.

“Your hunch was correct,” he answered, not mincing words at all. “Mostly. We found several suspicious bank accounts and evidence implicating someone as you suspected, but not who thought it was.”

“It’s not his aide?” Taskien asked.

“No,” her contact replied. “It’s the general.”

“The general?” she said, shocked. “I didn’t think he. . .”

“Don’t close yourself off to possibilities by assuming,” the man chided her. “You should know better.”

“The general is coming here,” she told him. “He’s on his way right now with a detachment of troops to secure this area.”

“Yes, I know, and his ship has been on comm-silence for the duration of their journey, so we can’t raise them. No doubt he’s also warned his officers not to trust transmissions from the surface.”

“Then we can’t let the ambassador get on the general’s shuttle.”

“Of course not,” the man told her. “But since Venasee is bound to have at least several operatives with him, you won’t want to let him know the game is up until you have the odds in your favor. Venasee won’t make the first move unless he’s forced.”

“Understood,” she told him.

“And Agent Taskien, be careful,” the man warned him. “Venasee suspects we’re onto him. We learned of his connections to a Separatist leader named Ardo Romierr. He secured some of Romierr’s mercenaries for a mission, and tracing those credits to one of Romierr’s shell accounts was what implicated him.”

“I think I know what that mission was,” Taskien replied.

“I suspect you do,” her contact said grimly. “But since it failed, Venasee will be looking for a way out, and a way to still complete his mission.”

“He’ll be here any minute,” Taskien told him. “I need to go.”

“Do what you can, Agent,” the man said. “Stop Venasee. His goal is to disrupt the negotiations and help push the miners into the Separatist fold.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Taskien muttered. “Taskien out.”

She terminated the conversation and logged out. Exiting the privacy booth, she saw that Srivas and several of the other agents were gone.

“Where’d they go?” she asked Jonna. “Where was that transmission coming from?”

“One of entourage quarters,” Jonna told her absently.

“Whose?” Taskien demanded.

“That ARC,” Jonna replied. “Alpha-28.”

Taskien suppressed a curse. There was no reason for the ARC to be secretly-communicating on a hidden transmission unless he had an alternate agenda. But then again, she’d been with him in the gym when the mercenary attack had happened, and he’d had no idea it was coming. He’d been genuinely surprised, and had fought back against the mercenaries, possibly even saving them single-handedly by taking out that sniper. On other hand, she’d initially discounted the possibility of the general being the disloyal one, suspecting someone in his office instead. “Wait, I’m picking up that transmission again,” Jonna said. “Just a quick blip.”

“Where?” Taskien asked.

“On the other side of the crater. By an observation lounge. I can triangulate it this time.”

“Where’s it going to?” Taskien asked.

“Somewhere close,” Jonna reported. “Maybe an airborne ship? Could be our incoming transports.”

Taskien’s eyes widened in sudden, horrified realization. Then she grabbed her blaster and bolted for the door.

“How soon will the transport be here?” she called on her way out.

“Five minutes, but why?” Jonna asked, perplexed.

“I’ll explain later!” Taskien shouted.

Assuming I’m in time to stop him.

Alpha-28 was lying prone, positioned in nearly the same place that the late Zygerrian sniper had been, using her rifle. It was an impressive piece of hardware, and he had no doubts it would be sufficient for the task at hand. Dialing in the range, he peered through the scope at the landing party. The ambassador’s security detail had gathered near the exterior door, but they hadn’t revealed Rayees yet. Smart of them, keeping him sheltered until they were sure he was safe. The ARC glanced over at his secure datapad, which he was using both to communicate with the general and monitor Republic comnets. He’d already informed the general that he was in position. Venasee was counting on him to take the shot and eliminate Rayees. The mercenaries would be blamed, and then he would slip back over to the resort amidst the confusion after wiping out any evidence of his involvement. Suddenly, he heard a loud clatter echoing through the passage behind him that led into the observation gallery. Someone had apparently hit the tripwire he’d rigged to guard his approach. He rolled over, ducking behind a bench, his blaster pistol already in his hand. Whether it was a mercenary or one of the Republic agents, he wasn’t about to let them get the drop on him. Nobody was supposed to be over here. He checked his chrono. The general would be here any minute now, which meant the ambassador would be emerging soon. This was a distraction he didn’t need, but alarm bells were ringing in his head. If the intruder wasn’t alone, any delay might be fatal.

“I know you heard that,” he heard a voice call from the hallway. “Clever.”

It was Taskien’s voice. Alpha-28 stiffened. She knew he was here, or at least suspected.

“Alpha-28, it’s me,” she told him. “Stand down. I know you’re in there.”

The ARC looked over at the sniper rifle, tantalizingly in view and tantalizingly vulnerable. The ambassador would only be exposed for a few seconds. He had to do this now, but if she survived, he wouldn’t have the plausible deniability he needed. Since she was here, that meant she already suspected someone was here. The situation had suddenly gone from tense to alarmingly tenuous. He fired three bolts from his pistol into the door’s mechanism and it slid shut, locking automatically. That would keep her out for the few precious seconds he needed, and there was no guarantee she knew it was him. He might still be able to bluff his way out of this—though it might mean that Agent Taskien would also become a casualty of war. That grim thought knotted his stomach, but he quickly suppressed it and moved back over to the rifle.

“Kriff! Stand down!” she shouted.

He gave no reply to her, but activated his secure comlink on the datapad and whispered a terse notification that would be sent as text to the general.

“Potentially compromised. Will attempt to complete mission then escape and evade.”

“Spectre, killing the ambassador is not a Republic mission!” Taskien shouted, desperately hoping that he wasn’t in on the plot and that the clone troopers were as loyal as she’d heard. “General Venasee is a traitor! He’s the one who hired those mercenaries!”

Alpha-28 sighted in on the door across the crater as it started to slide open to reveal the ambassador. He let the crosshairs of his rifle center on the ambassador’s chest as the man started to walk out onto the landing platform, flanked by four bodyguards. The distant rumble of repulsorlifts carried through the air as three LAAT/I gunships descended through the dark clouds, swooping down towards the landing platform. He heard blaster shots behind him; Taskien was trying to break down the door. He considered firing back, or relocating, but he had a mission to complete. His finger slipped into the trigger guard. Good thing she hadn’t wrapped that one, too. She must not have known his plan—but if she was onto him, did that mean she was a traitor? Or just a misguided Republic agent that had stumbled onto his secret mission? Either way, he’d have to eliminate Rayees and then kill her too if he wanted to escape.

That thought, repeated through his mind a second time, rattled him. If Taskien was innocent, he didn’t want to kill her. He wasn’t here to kill Republic operatives. Better to let her kill him, thinking he was traitorous, then be forced to truly commit murder against a Republic operative. Of course, if she was traitorous, then he’d be doing no wrong by gunning her down. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing.

“Listen to me,” Taskien yelled. “If you’re loyal to the Republic, then don’t shoot Rayees. I have orders from Coruscant to arrest Venasee. We picked up the comm transmission you’ve been using to communicate with him and it’s the same frequency and encryption pattern that the mercenaries used. They’re in league with him, and that’s how I knew you were too.”

The ARC gave no reply, but her words disturbed him. If they were true, the implications of pulling the trigger would be devastating. Then again, she could still be lying—but an increasing part of him doubted that. Taskien was a professional intelligent agent, to be sure, but he’d faced down lethal danger alongside her. She seemed as sincere as she’d ever been. But they had had only a single real conversation—how could he truly know what to do?

“Sometimes, you have to look beyond the mission,” she called over the sounds of her firing into the door. “This is that time! Trust me, Spectre! Venasee is using you! It’s a trick!”

Alpha-28 peered through his scope and saw operatives running out with blasters in hand towards the general’s gunship. They began pulling the ambassador back into the retreat center and he knew this was his last chance to fire. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew had to decide—decide whether to complete the mission as ordered, as expected, or to trust an agent he barely knew but who had fought alongside him and genuinely cared for him as more than just a cog in the Republic’s war machine. He took a deep breath, steadied the rifle, and then, in that moment, made his choice. Shaking his head, he released his grip on the rifle.

The door blew in behind him and the ARC half-turned to see Taskien pointing a blaster at him, a stern expression on her face. In that moment, he knew that he was dead if she was duplicitous. She kept the pistol pointed at him for just a second, then relaxed her grip and lowered the weapon.

“You didn’t fire,” she said.

“Neither did you,” he replied.

She started to say something, but then the sound of explosions rippled across the crater from behind him. Alpha-28 turned and saw the general’s LAAT banking over the crater and the other two LAATs were burning wrecks on the ground. In that instant, he knew she was right. Distant flashes of ground fire were impacting the ship, but the ARC knew it was hopeless. The gunship could easily shrug off hand blasters and level the entire complex. Because he hadn’t fired on the ambassador, and faced with exposure, the general had openly turned against them and attacked. No doubt he’d cut off communications and attempt to kill the ambassador with the gunship and then try to make his escape, possibly to whatever ship the mercenaries had arrived in.

“Venasee,” Taskien breathed.

“You were right,” the ARC answered tersely. “The general is a traitor.”

“How do we stop him?” she asked.

“Stay back,” he said. “He’ll fire at us if I don’t get him the first time.”

“I’m not leaving,” she told him.

“Suit yourself,” the ARC grunted.

Rolling back over to the sniper rifle, he sighted in on the slow-banking gunship as it came around for another pass. Alpha-28 allowed the sights to rest on the hull, drifting them over towards the cockpit. Taking a deep breath, he waited until he had a clean shot on the pilot and then fired. The rifle hummed and a brilliant discharge lanced forward. As soon as the lingering flare cleared, the ARC realized that the ship was still flying. It suddenly banked, heading back towards him.

A small holo of General Venasee appeared on the secure datapad.

“Captain, I’m very disappointed in you,” he said. “You’ve betrayed the Republic.”

“You’re the traitor,” Taskien retorted, while the ARC ignored him, taking aim again at the gunship.

He fired again, but still the gunship continued forward. Laser bolts the size of blaster rifles spat forth from the gunship, shattering windows and melting metal dangerously close to their position. The splatter made it much harder to aim, but he fired again anyway.

Taskien squinted her eyes, watching for where the laser struck.

“Spectre, half a meter down, about a quarter to the left,” she shouted while ducking behind a bench as the laser fire zeroed in on them.

He fired one last time, refusing to budge from the position. The lance of coherent light struck the cockpit of the LAAT and Taskien watched it tip over and start a gentle plunge into the burning crater of the Cauldron, where it crashed with a sickening thud. The laser bolts stopped and Taskien heaved a huge sigh of relief.

“We did it,” she said, leaning heavily against the wall, suddenly dizzy from the adrenaline rush.

“Yes, we did,” Alpha-28 said, straightening up from the sniper rifle after sweeping the area one last time for any other threats.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, walking over to him. “Thank you for trusting me. You made the right call.”

“Thank you for coming,” he told her. “And not shooting me.”

“Not if I could help it. The Republic needs you.”

He cracked a hint of a smile.

“What was that you were calling me back there?” he asked. “Spectre? The monster in the closet for the Republic’s enemies?”

She shrugged sheepishly.

“Alpha-28 seemed so impersonal.”

“You wanted to address me personally?”

“I wanted to address you as a person,” she said firmly. “Not as a mission, or a soldier, but a person.”

“I am a soldier.”

“And a damn good one. Not many could have made that shot. But you’re also a person, and that’s who I wanted to get through too.”

“Well, it worked,” Alpha-28 answered.

“Do you like it?”

“Hmm?”

“The name. Spectre.”

He considered it.

“I’ve read that some clones do give themselves names,” she offered.

“Could be a lot worse,” he replied. “I think I’ll keep it.”

He regarded her more seriously, snapping back to reality.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“Well, now I take you into investigative custody,” she said. “For mandatory debriefing as we get this whole thing sorted out. Of course, in light of your most recent actions, it’s highly-likely that your name will be cleared and you’ll be returned to active duty after this incident is buried and redacted from your record.”

“I see,” he said.

“Fortunately for you,” she told him. “I have significant leeway in how your case is treated, and since you did, in fact, shoot down the traitorous general before he could gun down more Republic operatives, I think that should count for something.”

“Oh?” he asked, confused.

“Yes,” she said. “I suspect we’ll be conducting that debriefing somewhere far nicer than the usual black site. I’m thinking Naboo. Or perhaps Alderaan. Somewhere with lots of water and plants and no volcanoes.”

“And you’ll be there too?” he asked.

She tossed her hair.

“Well, as the supervising agent, I would obviously have to be. Do you have any objections?”

He allowed himself a grin.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I intend to fully cooperate with the investigation.”

“Good,” she replied with mock officiousness. “Because while I do plan on making the investigation much more hospitable than it would normally be, I doubt I can speed up the red tape too much. Expect to be out of commission for at least a month.”

The ARC nodded solemnly.

“I understand,” he said. “Lead on, Agent Taskien.”

She cracked her steely expression to offer a warm smile in return.

“You can call me that while we’re on the clock,” she said. “But outside of official business, call me Roxana.”

“In that case,” he replied, “call me Spectre.”

“Nice name,” she said.

“A friend gave it to me,” he answered. “She said I was more than a number.”

“Sounds like a good friend.”

“She is. I’m glad I trusted her.”

“I’m glad you did too, Spectre. We’re just getting started.”