Triple Zero

by Karen Traviss

  “Yeah. You, me, Vau…”

  “No, not us.”

  “Escort for the speeder?”

  “No, nothing like that at all. Someone else. I don’t get any sense of malice. But it’s not the strike team.”

  “What’s that feel like?”

  “Like someone standing behind me.” He took one hand off the steering and tapped the back of his head behind his ear. The speeder swerved. “Right there.”

  “Both hands, Bard’ika…”

  “Sorry. Whoever it is, they’re focused on Kal.”

  “Should we be worried?”

  “No.”

  Jusik twisted the handlebars and the speeder accelerated as if it had been fired from a Verpine. Fi bit his lip and couldn’t stop his knees from pressing harder into the speeder bike’s fuselage.

  If he dropped the precious sniper rifle, Skirata would be heartbroken.

  “That’s all right, then,” Fi said. “I won’t worry at all.”

  Residential area, business zone 6,

  0930 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  The airspeeder settled, hot alloy clicking as its drive cooled, and someone pulled the black hood off Skirata’s head.

  “This way,” said the shaven-headed man. “Mind the steps.”

  Skirata walked down from a rooftop parking area through doors to a tastefully decorated room with a large, grainless pale wood table and thick deep gray carpet. They weren’t short of credits, then. Some terrorism was the war of the dispossessed, and some was the handiwork of the rich who felt secondhand outrage. Either way, it was an expensive sport.

  He was a mercenary. He knew the price of everything.

  He sat down in the chair offered, elbows braced on the table, and tried to take in as much useful detail of his surroundings as he could. Two visible escape routes: back out those doors, or down the turbolift. After ten minutes, a middle-aged human male entered with a woman of similar age: there was nothing remarkable about either of them. They simply nodded to Skirata and sat down facing him. Four more men followed, one of them about Jusik’s age, and Skirata found himself surrounded at the table by six people.

  Then Perrive walked in.

  “You’ll excuse us for not introducing ourselves, Kal,” he said. “I know you and you know me, and that’s probably all you need to know.”

  “Apart from the bank details, yes.”

  Perrive stood by the chair opposite Skirata and glanced pointedly at the man sitting in it, who then moved to another chair. You’re definitely the boss, then. And the others around the table—who were obviously assessing him as a supplier—didn’t look like junior minions. This was either the terror cabinet or a rare gathering of cell leaders. It had to be. Perrive handed the man next to him the small sample pack that Skirata had supplied the day before, and he examined it carefully before passing it around the table.

  Yes, they’ll be the ones distributing this. I should blow this place now. But that’s not sensible. Just satisfying.

  “We’d like all hundred kilos of your goods and four thousand detonators.”

  Skirata did a quick calculation. About twenty-five grams of five-hundred-grade thermal per device, then: a Bravo Eight Depot incident took the equivalent of two of those. Enough bomb-making kit for that level of carnage every day for five years, or a lower body count and mutilation for more than ten. A very economical war.

  “How much?”

  “Two million credits.”

  Skirata didn’t even pause to think. “Five.”

  “Two.”

  “Five.”

  “Three.”

  “Five, or I need to go and talk to my other customers.”

  “You don’t have any others who want this kind of explosive.”

  “If you think that, then you’re new in this galaxy, son.”

  “Three million credits. Take it or leave it.”

  Skirata got up and really did intend to walk. He had to look as if he meant it. He skirted the table as far as Perrive and then the man turned and put his hand on Skirata’s right arm. Skirata jerked it back, and he wasn’t acting the jumpy mercenary. It was his knife arm. Perrive noticed, eyebrows raised for a fraction of a second.

  “Four million,” Perrive said.

  Skirata paused and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Four, credits to be deposited and confirmed as being in my account before I release the goods, and I want the deal done in the next forty-eight hours.”

  “That requires trust.”

  “If I don’t have any other customers, then why would I want a hundred kilos of explosives hanging around my premises until Mustafar freezes over?”

  Perrive paused and then almost smiled. “Agreed.”

  Skirata reached in his pocket and handed him a datachip, stripped of all information except a numbered account that would exist only from noon for forty-eight hours. He had a constant stream of accounts like that. All the Nulls could slice like top pros, but Jaing was an artist among data deceivers. My clever lad. “Time and place, then.”

  “All in one delivery.”

  “Okay. But it stays wrapped in quarter-kilo packs bagged in tens, because I’m not going to unwrap every di’kutla bar and get covered in forensic evidence.” He paused, trying to look as if he was thinking of another reason. “And that’s two and a half kilos a bag, which is going to be easier for you to move.”

  “What makes you think we’re going to move it?”

  Smart, eh? “If you’re keeping that all in one place, you’re insane. I’m used to handling the stuff and even I don’t like it around me. You do know what five-hundred-grade does, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Perrive said. “It’s my business. Let’s say midnight tomorrow. Here.”

  “If I knew where here was, I might agree.”

  “We’ll let you walk out and then you’ll see.”

  “I can land speeders on your roof, can I?”

  “Up to Metrocab size.”

  “I’ll probably bring two small speeders. I’ll call you half an hour before.”

  “I haven’t given you my number.”

  “Better do that, then, or you won’t get your goods. I don’t want any further contact until then—and I don’t want anyone following me when I leave here. Okay?”

  Perrive nodded. “Agreed.”

  And it was that simple. It never ceased to amaze Skirata how much simpler it was to buy and sell death than it was to pay taxes. “Show me to the front door, then.”

  Shaven-Head took him down in the polished durasteel turbolift—it always reminded him of Kamino, that brutally clinical finish—and walked him through a ground floor that was just one square room with no rear exit and one door at the front.

  Easier to defend—if you were confident you could escape via the roof.

  The doors parted. Kal Skirata stepped out onto a secluded walkway and found himself in affluent Coruscanti suburbia. He checked the position of the sun and began walking in the direction of the main skylanes. If he kept walking east, he’d come to the office sector sooner or later. Besides, the holocam that Fi and Sev placed a few hours earlier was watching him right now from the building opposite.

  There were a lot of pedestrians about.

  Skirata clicked his back teeth and opened the comlink channel. He didn’t like the bead comlink any better than he liked wearing a hearing enhancer.

  “Listen up, ad’ike,” he said as quietly as he could. “Game on. Game on!”

  Logistics center,

  Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ,

  0940 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  “Do I look as if I’ve been flattened by a… PIP laser?” Besany Wennen asked.

  “PEP laser.” Ordo, posing as Corr again, helmet tucked under his left arm, let her pass through the logistics center’s doors ahead of him as Kal’buir had told him. It was the polite thing to do. “And no. You just look tired.”

  “I can’t say it’s been a typical day’s duty fo
r me.”

  “I respect your willingness to accept this without wanting to complain to your superiors.”

  “If I did, I’d compromise your mission, wouldn’t I?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then it’s just a bad bruise and an interesting evening. No more.”

  She was as tall as he was and looked him straight in the eye: her dark eyes made her light blond hair seem exotic in contrast. She’s different. She’s special. He made a conscious effort to concentrate.

  “I’ll make sure you have acceptable records for your bosses to show that the investigation was completed,” Ordo said.

  “And that the suspects… let’s say that I learned they were of interest to military intelligence, so I withdrew from further involvement.”

  “Well, I can guarantee they won’t be troubling you any longer.”

  Ordo was still waiting for her to ask exactly what Vau had done to the real Vinna Jiss, and what Ordo was going to do to the employees leaking information—Jinart had identified two—and a thousand other questions. He would have wanted to know everything, but Wennen just stuck to what she needed to know to close down her part of the surveillance. He didn’t understand that reaction at all.

  “What happens to you now?” he asked.

  “I go back to my own department in the morning and pick up the next file. Probably corporate tax evasion.” She slowed him down with a careful hand on his arm. He let that touch thrill him now. He was still uneasy, but he was less disturbed by the attraction. “What about you?”

  “Reducing payroll numbers. Fi suggested we call it staff turnover, in the spirit of military euphemism.”

  It seemed to take her a couple of moments to work out what he meant. She frowned slightly. “Won’t whoever they’re reporting to notice they’re missing?”

  “Jinart says they only call in every four or five days. That gives us a time window to work within.”

  “Aren’t you ever afraid?”

  “When the shooting starts, frequently.” It struck him that she probably found the idea of assassination uncomfortable, but she didn’t say so. “But not as afraid as I would be if I were operating without weapons. Your superiors really should arm you.”

  They reached the doors to the operations room. She stopped dead.

  “I know this has nothing to do with me any longer, but will you do something for me?”

  “If I can.”

  “I want to know when you make it through this.” She seemed to lose some composure. “And your brothers, and your ferocious little sergeant, of course. I rather like him. Will you call me? I don’t need details. Just a word to let me know that it went okay, whatever it is.”

  “I think we can manage that,” Ordo said.

  This was where he turned left to go to Accounts, to find Hela Madiry, a woman clerk nearing retirement age—just an ordinary woman who happened to have distant cousins on Jabiim. Then he would pay a visit to Transport Maintenance, and look up a young man who had no family allegiance or ideology in this war but who liked the credits that the Separatists paid him. Their motives made no difference: they would both die very soon.

  “Be careful… Trooper Corr,” Besany said.

  Ordo touched gloved fingers to his forehead in an informal salute.

  “You too, ma’am. You too.”

  Business zone 6,

  walkway 10 at the junction of skylane 348,

  0950 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  Fi braced for a verbal barrage as Jusik brought the speeder to a stop at the end of the walkway and settled it on the edge of the taxi platform. Skirata walked up to them straight-faced through the scattering of pedestrians and stood with his hands thrust in the pockets of his leather jacket.

  “You’re leading Fi astray, Bard’ika.”

  “I’m sorry, but you told me that you should never enter an enemy stronghold without backup if you could help it.”

  “I hate it when people take notice of me. Fi, what’s wrong?”

  Fi was still looking around, trying to cover three dimensions that might conceal a threat. Jusik had said that whoever was following Skirata had no malicious intention, but Fi reasoned that not everyone who was going to kill you had a sense of malice. He’d killed plenty of people without any ill feeling whatsoever. While the Force was fascinating, Fi liked to see things through the scope of his Deece, preferably with the red target acquisition icon pulsing.

  He put his hand under his jacket to slide the rifle from under his arm. This was when the unusually short barrel and folding stock came into their own. You could still use the weapon at short range. “Bard’ika thinks there’s someone following you.”

  “I normally notice.”

  “But you’re deaf.”

  “Partially, you cheeky di’kut.” Skirata resorted to his reflex of straightening his right arm to have his knife ready. “Well, maybe we’d better move on before they catch up.”

  “Nobody with ill intent,” Jusik said. He slid his hand to the opening of his jacket, suddenly edgy. Fi took his cue and swung off the speeder to stand in front of Skirata. “And they’re very, very close.”

  “Steady, son. Public place, people around. No lightsaber, okay?”

  “Very close.” Jusik looked past Skirata.

  A young man with short white-blond hair was striding toward them through the sparse crowd, arms held a little away from his sides, a large bag over one shoulder. His knee-length dark blue coat was wide open. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying an armory under there somewhere. Fi unfolded the Verp’s stock one-handed under his jacket and prepared to draw it and fire.

  The man then held both hands up at shoulder level and grinned.

  “Fierfek,” Skirata breathed. “Udesii, lads. It’s okay.”

  The blond man—Fi’s height, very athletic—walked straight up to Skirata and crushed him in an enthusiastic hug. “Su’cuy, Buir!”

  Father. Fi knew the voice.

  “Suc’uy, ad’ika. Tion vaii gar ru’cuyi?”

  “N’oya’kari gihaal, Buir.” The man looked almost tearful: his pale blue eyes were brimming. He wiped them with the heel of his hand. “If I’m not careful I’ll wash out this iris dye.”

  “That hair doesn’t suit you, either.”

  “I can change that, too. I’ve got lots of different colors. Did you like what I added to the five-hundred-grade thermal?”

  “Ah. I did wonder.”

  “I’m still a better chemist than Ord’ika, Kal’buir.”

  Fi finally saw the face in front of him as a negative image, and suddenly imagined dark hair and eyes, and realized why the man was familiar. He wasn’t one of Skirata’s own sons. He was a clone, just like Fi: or, to be precise, just like Ordo. It was astonishing how much difference pigmentation alone made to someone’s appearance: a simple but effective disguise, for casual use anyway.

  Skirata beamed at him with evident pride. “Lads, this is ARC Trooper Lieutenant N-7,” he said. “My boy Mereel.”

  So this was Mereel. And even though Fi’s Mando’a wasn’t perfect, he understood that Skirata had asked him where he’d been, and that the ARC trooper had said that he’d been hunting fish-meal.

  Fi was fascinated. But he kept his fascination to himself.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I had no mother and no father. I was four years old when they first put a weapon in my hands. I was taught to suppress my feelings, and to respect and obey my Masters. I was encouraged to be obsessive about perfection. It wasn’t the life I would have chosen, but the one ordained because of my genes—just like the men I’m expected to command. But now I have something wonderful, something I have chosen. And I will never let anyone take the child I’m carrying.

  —General Etain Tur-Mukan, private journal

  GAR logistics center,

  1230 hours, 385 days after Geonosis

  It was lunchtime.

  The biggest decision most people made at that time of day in the logistics center was
whether to eat in the cafeteria or find a spot in the public courtyard nearby to enjoy an open-air snack.

  Ordo’s decision was whether to use the Verpine, or walk up to the traitor Hela Madiry, maneuver her into a shadowy alcove, and then garrote her or cut her throat.

  Verpine. Best choice. Fast and silent, as long as the projectile didn’t pass through her and hit something that made a noise.

  Madiry sat in the shadow of a planter filled with vivid yellow shrubs, eating a mealbread stick and reading a holozine, oblivious to her life expectancy. Ordo sat in the shade of a manicured tree with his datapad on his lap, calculating her remaining life in minutes.

  There was nobody within ten meters of her, but there was a security holocam.

  A man sat down on the bench beside him. “Well, our young friend in Transport Maintenance just had an unfortunate accident with a repulsorlift platform. Thanks for the use of your security codes.”

  “And he didn’t turn into a Gurlanin, I hope.”

  Mereel looked utterly alien with light hair and eyes. Even his skin was tinted two shades paler. It didn’t suit him. “No, vod’ika, he turned into a dead human. Skulls and repulsor-lifts don’t mix. Trust me.”

  “Just checking.”

  “You haven’t told Kal’buir about Ko Sai yet, have you?” Mereel asked.

  “I thought he might be less distracted if we wait until this mission is completed.”

  “He’s a true verd, a warrior. He’s never distracted when the shooting starts.”

  “There’s no rush,” Ordo said.

  Mereel shrugged. Out of armor and kama, he slouched in a convincingly civilian manner. “So, shall I wander off?”

  Ordo was watching the security holocam that covered the area between the woman and the public refreshers twenty meters beyond. “Can you disrupt that holocam circuit for me on my mark?”

  Mereel felt in his coat for something and pulled out a slim stylus. It was an EMP disruptor. “I can do it without leaving my seat, ner vod.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a reminder to kill the cam when I’m five meters from her.”