This was a female, blunt-winged, her soot-and-concrete plumage beautifully camouflaged against the buildings. Like a flake of ash she drifted on invisible currents of wind; stuttered in midair; and then dropped like a thunderbolt to pounce on something below. Solis watched her drop, tracking her fall through bands of light and shadow, magnifying her image smoothly as she fell until he could make out the yellow band around the edge of her mad eyes, and see her prey, a scrap mouse nosing around a pile of slops in a back alley 237 stories below. Solis's eyesight was without exaggeration the equal of anything in the galaxy. Upkeep on the Tau/Zeiss tac-optics had been a higher priority than keeping current with the latest hologame programming. When one wasn't in livery, one had to make some cold calculations about the kind of work one was best at, and the steps one had to take to keep oneself employed. The tracking crosshairs centered over the mouse's head as its little mouth opened, a single shocked squeak as iron talons drove like hammered nails through its tiny side.
Death from above.
Solis looked away from the falcon's kill, sparing a reflex glance at the Jedi Temple as he did so. “Hey.”
“What?”
“Your target's leaving the Temple,” he said.
Fidelis's head snapped around. He stared transfixed at the steps leading down from the Jedi Temple 1.73 kilometers away. “Oh,” he said.
“Two Jedi, two Padawans, and an artoo unit,” Solis said. They were both standing at the edge of the roof now. Solis looked at his comrade. “There's something funny about that artoo, don't you think? It's not moving quite right. Maybe a servo out of whack⦔
No answer from Fidelis, who only continued to stare at the little party sallying forth from the Temple, watching them with the hungry intensity of someone lost in the desert who has just seen water for the first time in days.
Weeks.
Years.
It had been so long since Solis was in livery, he could barely remember the shock of loyalty, that hardwired current of connection that moved through one like religious awe in the face of Family. Really, it made Fidelis look rather foolish, standing there gripping the rooftop railing so fiercely he was leaving crimp marks in the duracreteâ¦and yet it was hard not to envy him. It would have been nice, just one more time, to feel that thrill of connection.
If droids could feel envy, that is. But as Fidelis was quick to point out, they hadn't been programmed for it, had they? Envy, disappointment, regret. Loneliness. Affectations, every one of them. Not real at all.
“Let's go,” he said, taking Fidelis roughly by the arm. “Time to hunt.”
There's no such thing as
above
in space. Of course, any sufficiently massive objectâa planet, a starâexerts a gravitational pull, but unless one is falling right down its gravity well, the pull feels more like
toward
than
down.
So, in a strictly technical sense, Asajj Ventress, hovering in deep space in the
Last Call,
a Huppla Pasa Tisc fan-blade starfighter so sleek and deadly as to seem like her own lethal self reconsidered, with transparisteel for skin and laser cannon eyes, could not be said to be circling above Coruscant like a spire falcon waiting for her prey.
But to a less scientific observer, one who knew little about physics and saw only the cruel, satisfied light in her eyes as Yoda's ship cleared local space, that's exactly what she looked like.
As Palleus Chuff, doing his duty as a patriotic actor, was accelerating to escape Coruscant's gravity well, the real Yoda was waiting in a seemingly endless line along with what could easily have been the population of a frontier planet, all shuffling glumly through the cavernous new Chancellor Palpatine Spaceport and Commercial Nexus.
Nobody was supposed to know that, though.
The trouble with undercover missions, Jai Maruk was thinking, was that one gave up so many of the perks of being a Jedi. Under normal circumstances, dashing off to face death for the good of the Republic was a fairly straightforward business. Packing for even the most extended trip took him less than an hour. A quick bite of food in the refectory, then up to the Jedi Temple's private launch bay. A few words with the tech chief, an eye and thumbprint required for him to take out the preapproved choice of starcraft, a simple preflight checklist, and he was away.
A considerable improvement over
this.
They were to travel in disguise, taking commercial starship flights all the way out to Vjun, and the whole process so far had been excruciatingly boring. After taking an hour to drop off their baggage and another hour getting tickets, they had been standing in this monstrous security line for nearly
three
hours. It was all very well for Maks Leemâshe was a Gran. Gran were descended from herd animals; they
liked
crowds. Jai singularly didn't. He was a private man at the best of times; the muddy wash of emotions slopping around himâanxiety, irritation, preflight nerves, and sheer shrieking boredomâwas foggy and irritating at the same time, like being swaddled in an itchy bantha blanket. On top of which, their position was ridiculously exposed. A would-be assassin could loom out of the crowd at any instant. Even if he had time to react, simply drawing his lightsaber in the crush of this crowd would probably lop the limbs off a couple of innocent bystanders.
On top of which he was supposed to look after his new Padawan, Scout. Not that she had done anything wrong so farâif you didn't count her annoying tendency to contradict his judgment, more than a little off-putting in a fourteen-year-old girl. But she still had her left hand in a bandage, and bacta patches on her burned leg. Not only was the Force weak in her; the truth was, she ought to have been lying in the infirmary sipping Hillindor fowl soup.
And to be honestâwhich Jai Maruk was, even to the one audience to whom people tell their worst lies, himselfâJai didn't feel ready to deal with a Padawan. He was a doer still, not a teacher. He wanted to get back to Vjun and make good his last miserable interview with Count Dooku, and he didn't want to drag a teenage girl across the galaxy at the same time. Clearly Master Yoda had a reason for forcing the Padawan on him, but Jai hadn't learned to be happy about it.
And as for Master Yoda himselfâ¦
Jai glanced uneasily at the little R2 unit traveling with them and caught it starting to sidle out of line again, slipping under the security ribbons. “Scout, check the artoo,” he grated. “It seems to be having a little difficulty
staying put.
”
The girl clapped her hand on top of the R2's caparace, which gave an odd ringing thump, as if she had whacked the side of an empty metal barrel. “Don't worry, Father,” she chirped. “I've got an eye on him. On it, I mean.”
“At least we're nearly at the head of the line,” Master Leem said soothingly.
A little knot of security officers in the tan-and-black colors of the Republic were directing people into a dozen different security scanners, so the one mighty line splintered at the end of its journey like a river dividing into a dozen channels to run into the sea. Each station was staffed by a pair of weary, irritable security personnel; behind them, additional squads were performing random security checks, opening people's carry-on luggage and making them empty their pockets and performing pat-down searches.
“You should have packed your lightsaber in your luggage,” Scout murmured to Jai Maruk.
He gritted his teeth and made a grab for the R2, which had skittered forward and bumped into the Chagrian in front of them. “Terribly sorry,” he ground out.
They got to the head of the line. “Line seven,” the security guard said to Jai Maruk. “You to line eleven, and you're in line two,” he said to Maks and Whie. “Line three for the girl. Who's the droid going to go with?”
“Me,” all four of them said at once.
The security guard raised an eyebrow.
“I'll take the artoo,” Jai Maruk said. “We are all traveling together. You should let us go through the scanners together,” he added, slowly and with emphasis.
The security guard started to nod, caught himself, and glared at Jai Maruk with redoubled suspicion. “Like the song says, you'll meet again on the other side, Twinkle-toes. But you just earned yourself a completely random Deep Tissue Inspection. DTI on number seven!” he bellowed.
“Butâ” Master Leem said.
“No time for that,” the guard said, shoving her toward line number eleven.
“Butâ” Scout said.
“No time for that, either!” The guard shoved Scout toward line three. “And take the artoo with you.”
A couple more security guards stepped forward. Behind them, the crowd began to mutter darkly about the delay. The four Jedi exchanged glances, and split apart.
“May I ask why I am being subjected to this extra search,” Jai Maruk said icily.
“Random search, sir, completely random, completely for your protection,” said the guard on station number seven, a briskly competent middle-aged woman. “Plus you look like a Druckenwellian.”
“That's because I was born on Druckenwell,” Jai grated.
“But Coruscant papers, I see. Neat trick,” the guard said.
“I've lived here all my lifeâ”
“Except for the part where you were born there? In case you didn't know, sir, Druckenwell is an avowed member of the Trade Federation, with whichâperhaps this escaped your notice as wellâwe are currently at war. Oh
ho
!” she said, laying a hand on the hilt of his lightsaber. Instantly Maruk's hand was covering hers, a dangerous light in his eye.
The guard met his glance. “Are you interfering with a security guard in the line of duty, sir?”
“I am a member of the Jedi Order,” Jai said quietly. “That is the handle of my lightsaber. I prefer others not touch it.”
“Should have packed it in your luggage then, shouldn't you?” she said perkily.
“And if pirates were to attack the liner, I'm supposed to run to the cargo bay and find my weapon somewhere between my shirts and socks?” Maruk hissed.
The guard smiled at him indulgently. “Look, sirâyou and I both know the Jedi Order has its very own starships. If you were really a Jedi Knight, you wouldn't be flying out of Chance Palp, would you?”
“Butâ”
“You can always explain it to my manager. Rumor has it the wait is less than two hours!”
The guard at security point three was a dull-eyed young man with a lip full of Chugger's Chaw. “Walk directly beneath the scanner beam with your hands at your sides,” he mumbled.
“Sure,” Scout said. She gave the R2 a little nudge and they went at the same time, Scout passing underneath the scanner while the R2 lurched uneasily around the outside.
No lights, no sirens.
Whew,
Scout thought. Glancing over at security point seven, she saw Jai getting a lecture from the security staff. He looked like he was going to pop a vein right there on the concourse. Scout congratulated herself once more on stashing her lightsaber in her luggage.
Her guard paused to eject a long string of brilliant green spit into an empty stimcaf cup. “Sorry, ma'am. The droid has to pass through the scanner, too.”
“The droid? He can't,” Scout blurted.
The guard blinked. “Regulations, ma'am. The Trade Federation is spreading madware through our droids. We start letting them skip the cleaners, one day you'll wake up in your very own home and find it's been conquered by the smartvac and the laundry droid.”
“Are you serious?”
“They use
microwaves,
” the guard said, jetting another stream of spit gravely into his cup. “The artoo's got to go through. Come on, little fella,” he said, making a chucking sound in his throat, as if calling a faithful hound.
The R2 gave a weird, croaking wheep and shook its head.
“He can't go through,” Scout said desperately. “He's afraid of scanners.”
“Afraid of scanners?”
“It's his eyes. Video sensors, I mean. Very delicate, specialized,” she babbled. Next to her, Whie had breezed through line two. She gave him a beseeching look. “This little fellow actually belongs to my grandfather,” she said, giving the R2 another hollow-sounding slap on the carapace and then wishing she hadn't. “He's a Seeing Eye droid. That's why his sensors are so, so⦔
The guard's mouth was hanging open, and a little line of spit was dangling from his lower lip. “Seeing Eye droid, my
butt,
” he said. His eyes narrowed. “Let me see those papers again, and get that tin can back behind the red line so he can go through the scanners proper!”
Whie picked up his carry-on and stepped over to rejoin Scout. “You don't need to scan the artoo again,” he said casually.
The guard blinked.
“It went through with the girl,” Whie said. “They both checked out fine.”
Splotch.
The trickle of green spit soaked slowly into the guard's uniform shirt. He looked down at it and swore. “Git on,” he said, waving his hand irritably. “I don't need to scan the artoo again.”
Scout looked from Whie to the guard. “Soâ¦we checked out all right?”
“You checked out fine. Now, git! Can't you see I'm busy over here?”
“Yessir. Thank you, sir.” Scout walked quickly away from the guard station. Whie followed behind, checking the heft of the lightsaber on his hip and grinning at her.
“That was impressive,” Scout whispered. “Must be nice, to just make people do what you want.”
“It comes in useful every now and⦔ For some reason, looking at her, he trailed off, and the smile left his face.
“What's up?” Scout said. And then, “Heyâaren't we missing someone?”
In a crowded spaceport concourse, a standard R2 unit is easy to overlook. First, there is the issue of size. At just over one meter in height, an R2 is quickly obscured in a dense crowd of humans, Chagrians, Gran, and assorted other humanoids. Then, aside from a lack of
physical
height, there is the issue of a droid's comparative lack of
psychological
size. To a sentient organic, another sentient organic is an object of great interest: will this new person be my friend or enemy, help me or harass me, thwart me or save me a place in the stimcaf line? Droids, on the other hand, occupy a spot in the consciousness of the average sentient being roughly analogous to, say, complicated and ingenious household appliances. A programmable food prep, for instance, or a smart bed. To a humanoid, a droidâunless it's a battle droid approaching with laser cannons on autofireâjust doesn't
matter
very much.