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  The younger woman was taller, with an athlete’s build and long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. Over her jumpsuit she wore a plain black worker’s belt with numerous snap hooks and attachment points on it; incongruously, a lightsaber dangled from one of them, its hilt plain and unadorned. Voort suspected that the woman’s features did constitute beauty to other humans, but, curiously, she wore no makeup and her hairstyle seemed to be chosen for ease of maintenance rather than its ability to draw the eye. Her features were oddly familiar to him.

  He returned his attention to the older woman. “Bhindi! And your friend is …” Voort glanced at the younger woman again. “Is it Jesmin? Jesmin Tainer?”

  Bhindi stood taller to kiss Voort on the cheek. “I’m One, or Leader, until we’re at the safe house. And it is so good to see you, Seven.”

  The younger woman offered him an uncertain smile. “Good to see you again. I’m surprised you remember me.”

  “You look more like your mother than yourself now.” Once more Voort held his hand up at waist level, indicating the woman’s height when he’d last seen her.

  “Reunions will have to wait.” Bhindi’s voice was friendly but brisk. “Five, I need you at your station. Seven, join Three at the furnace. Good job on the heist.” She moved past Voort to join Trey and the others at the back of the hauler.

  Jesmin’s smile became apologetic. She turned to dash back the way she’d come.

  Voort moved to stand near the furnace—not too near: it really was putting out an uncomfortable level of heat. The furnace was a sturdy-looking durasteel column stretching from floor to ceiling, its black, grimy exterior marred by various analog readouts and a large hatch at waist level. The hatch was open, revealing a wall of yellow-red flame beyond. Voort knew that the column extension up to the ceiling was part of the conveyor setup; on floors above this one, residents of the skytower would drop waste into destruction hampers, which would then funnel the waste into this shaft and drop it straight into the incinerator.

  Back at the hauler, the Wraiths had the cargo bed unsealed and open. They were in the process of removing its contents, a large number of blue-black duraplast cases one and a half meters long, and half a meter wide and deep. From their evident weight and their origin, Voort suspected they held blaster rifles.

  Myri, carrying a cloth bag, joined him. She jerked the red wig from her head and tossed it into the furnace’s open hatch. Her real hair, apparently short and black, was held down tightly by a mesh cap. “You’ll want to burn your clothes, anything that might have picked up chemical or material traces from the speeder.” She reached into her bag, retrieved a red wig that looked identical to the first, and dropped it on the floor in front of the furnace. “I’ve got a new jumpsuit, just as awful as the one you’re wearing, in here for you.”

  “I find myself thrilled.” Voort glanced at the red wig. “Full of forensic evidence for the army investigators to find, I assume?”

  She smiled at him. “Oh, you know that one.”

  “A scam as old as the stars. But if you’re meticulous enough, it works wonders.” Voort bent over to unseal his boots. He pulled them off, then straightened to unseal the jumpsuit he was wearing.

  Back at the hauler, an assembly line of sorts was in full operation. The bald human was unloading the blaster rifle cases, piling them on the floor. Bhindi picked up each one in turn to set it at one end of the hover cart, which was now switched off, resting on the floor. Trey, with a set of tools, meticulously unlocked the seals holding each case closed. The Clawdite removed one blaster battery pack from the case and replaced it with an identical-looking pack from a pile on the floor. Then Trey resealed the case and Bhindi stacked it on the far end of the hover cart. The Clawdite took the discarded military battery pack and placed it in a large flexiplast bag at his feet.

  “Guess.” Myri sounded amused.

  Voort glanced at her. She’d removed the crinkly gold costume and shoved it into the furnace; she wore only gray shorts and a sleeveless gray undershirt. An identical costume to her original one lay on the floor atop the wig. She held out a mass of cloth to him, another jumpsuit.

  He took it, then looked away, returning his attention to the assembly line. In his experience, actors, dancers, and spies were not self-conscious while dressing or undressing in the presence of others, but he still preferred to give her the pretense of privacy. He stared at the batteries. “You have transceivers in those new battery packs so you can track their movements.”

  “Far too simple. Those new battery packs are actually droids with some movement and manipulation functions … plus they’re functional battery packs, though they don’t contain as many shots as their displays claim.”

  “Ah.” Voort kicked off his boots and peeled off his jumpsuit. “The ‘King of the Droids’ ploy.”

  “You’re familiar with it?”

  “It was invented by a teammate of mine and her astromech a long, long time ago. Before you gave your father his first gray hair. Each of your battery droids can reprogram and subvert simple droids, like housekeeping droids. Correct?”

  “Aww.” Even over the sound of rustling clothes, Myri’s voice sounded disappointed. “I thought we’d invented that.”

  Voort struggled into his new jumpsuit, then slipped on and sealed his boots. “So, for this ploy to work, you have to let those rifles be recaptured, correct? Or will you be selling them to a criminal cartel?”

  “Recaptured.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In a few minutes.”

  Startled, he looked at her again. She was fully dressed. Her hair, a new wig, was a metallic silver bob. Her makeup was scrubbed away and replaced by a visor that looked opaque from the outside, and she was in a jumpsuit that matched those of the others. The replacements for her incinerated previous costume lay on the floor at her feet.

  She took his used jumpsuit and tossed it into the furnace. “All done? Go around the corner where Jezzie went. The grenades there are yours, the blaster’s mine.”

  “Jezzie?”

  “I mean Five. I’ve known her since we were kids. Old nicknames are hard to forget.”

  Together they exited the furnace nook and moved into the cooler, quieter gap in the wall from which Bhindi, Jesmin, and the Clawdite had emerged. Voort took a look around. It looked as though the Wraiths had broken their way into a sealed-off corridor, possibly a maintenance access or just space that had been sealed off during a renovation, and installed doors indistinguishable from wall panels at both ends. He could peer down the unpainted corridor they had made, which appeared to open, a few meters away, into another warehouse space. He could hear repulsors and thrusters being revved in what had to be a motivator test.

  Closer at hand, there were two grenades and a blaster rifle on the floor against the wall. He picked up the grenades. They were of types familiar to him—one smoker and one dazzler, preset to detonate on impact once the activator buttons were pressed. He hefted them, familiarizing himself with their weight. “How are your parents?” He felt awkward asking it, but he wanted to introduce the subject of Wedge and Iella so he could ease the conversation around to what he really wanted to ask.

  Myri picked up the blaster rifle, ejected the battery pack to check its contacts, and reinserted it. She flipped the switch on the side to its stun setting. “Daddy’s great. Did you read his memoirs?”

  “Ace in the Hole: A Cockpit’s-Eye View of Turbulent Times. Oh, yes. Sad that he had to leave out far more than he could write about.”

  “More volumes for later, when things are declassified. Anyway, he’s having a great time doing speaking tours, doing consulting work for Incom, things like that. Mom, though—she hates retirement. I think she’s going to start a revolution somewhere to cope with the boredom.”

  “Myri, I thought you were making your living gambling. Nice and safe on the Errant Venture. Making a fortune, from what I heard.”

  She nodded, her attention on her rifle.

  �
�So? Why this?”

  She smiled. “You must be so proud.”

  “What? Of whom?”

  “That’s what they tell me. Mostly about Daddy. ‘Wedge Antilles’s daughter? You must be so proud.’ And I am. Some people know about Mom’s career. ‘You must be so proud.’ And I am. Some people know about my sister’s record in the last war. ‘You must be so proud.’ Yes, yes, I am. But maybe it’s time for someone to be proud of what I do. Maybe even me.”

  “Most of the people I’m proud to have known died making me proud, Myri.”

  She shot him a reproving glance. “Your heart’s really not in this, is it?”

  “No. And the thought of what your parents would do if—”

  A speaker popped into life. Bhindi’s voice came over the system: “Take your number two positions, please. We’ll be attacked within three minutes.”

  Myri positioned herself so that her back was to the corridor wall. She could not be seen by anyone entering the warehouse through the main doors. “You want a briefing?”

  “It would be nice.”

  “A unit of army specialists are going to blow their way in here. You and I open up on them to give the others time to get here and past us to where the extraction vehicle is. Jez—Five’s piloting. When the other Wraiths are past, we bring up the rear and everybody gets away.”

  Voort nodded. “I like that part.”

  In the main room, Trey, Bhindi, and the Clawdite arrayed themselves between the stolen hauler and the exit corridor. The bald human remained at the rear of the hauler and powered up the hover cart. It rose twenty centimeters, humming, and blaster rifle cases atop it vibrated. The bald man flexed as if stretching in anticipation of an athletic contest. The Clawdite, nearest the exit corridor, held the bag of discarded battery packs.

  Bhindi was nearest the hauler. She paid close attention to an open datapad in her hands, and Voort could see the image on its small screen. It switched between holocam views of the warehouse exterior. There, blue-uniformed Galactic Alliance Army troopers, special forces by the unit markings on their uniforms and the way they moved, were getting into position on the surrounding walkways, ushering pedestrians back and sending scouts forward.

  Voort gulped. Confronting special forces was an easy way to get seriously killed. He took up position beside Myri.

  Myri glanced around the corner, took in the scene, and drew back. “Scut drew the low card, then. Well, he’s a fast runner.”

  “The bald human, he’s Scut?”

  “Human?” Myri sounded confused. “Oh. The bald man with the ears like solar arrays. That’s him. Wraith Six.”

  The main door into the warehouse, the same portal Voort had flown through just minutes before, blew in, propelled by the concussive boom of a shaped charge. In the same instant the warehouse lights went out; suddenly the only light sources were the hole in the door and the fiery glow from the incinerator.

  Uniformed men and women poured in through the hole, already picking out targets with their blaster rifles.

  If they were attacking in darkness, they’d be using light-amplification visors, Voort thought. He stepped into the corridor opening, blocking Myri, pressed home the button on the dazzle-grenade, and hurled it.

  It wasn’t his best throw. The dazzler had been in his left hand, and he was right-handed. But it flew fifteen meters and landed five meters in front of the hole in the door. It detonated on impact, filling the entire chamber with a brief, brilliant glow.

  Not that Voort saw it. He had his eyes closed, and he waited until the glow died before opening them. There were cries of outrage and surprise from the invading troopers. He pressed the button on his other grenade, threw, and stepped back. Myri moved up in front of him, took aim, and began squeezing off shots. Voort watched over her head.

  The dazzler had done a good job. Some of the invaders were firing, but it seemed to be defensive sprays of blaster bolts, un-aimed. Myri’s shots were far more accurate—methodically, she picked off one, two, three, four troopers.

  And she traversed rightward, aiming away from her comrades, giving them a safer approach. The Clawdite made it to the corridor, ran past Voort.

  Trey was next, his run lumbering as he brushed past Voort on his way to safety.

  Despite the way Myri had reduced their numbers, the troopers began to return fire with more discipline. Bhindi, narrowly missed by a pair of shots, hit the ground and scrambled on all fours with startling speed, her datapad still in hand. She got past Voort and rose, resuming a full run.

  Scut was now in motion, pushing the hover cart at a dead run as if intending to escape with its cargo—despite the fact that the exit corridor was too narrow to admit it. A few crates of blasters, jostled by his motion, slid off the cart and clattered to the floor, leaving a trail behind him.

  And then a blaster bolt at full lethal strength hit Scut in the center of the back.

  The bald man went down on his face, sliding forward a couple of meters. The hover cart, uncontrolled, slid into the wall a few meters from the exit panel. The impact scattered most of the crates on it; they slid into the metal wall, then off the cart and onto the floor.

  Myri said something that, to Voort, sounded both Rodian and very unpleasant. She concentrated her fire on the source of the blaster bolt that had hit Scut, a trooper wreathed in smoke from Voort’s grenade.

  Voort crouched, preparing for the last thing on Coruscant he had any desire to do: a run back into the chamber to grab Scut. But then the bald man was on his feet and running again. Voort ducked aside. Scut, still grinning, his jumpsuit on fire and burning away to ash all across his body, ran past Voort as if out on a daily jog. Voort stared after him, baffled.

  Myri grabbed Voort’s arm, spun him toward the far warehouse, and pushed. She raised her voice to be heard over the tumult from the chamber they’d just left. “Extracting!”

  The near doorway swung shut with a clang. Voort belatedly began running, the floor plates booming under his boots, and emerged into a smaller but similar warehouse chamber. That chamber’s main door was grinding open. The only thing in the chamber was an airspeeder, a bulky orange delivery vehicle, the lettering on its side reading FOOD THE COLOR YOU ENJOY MOST.

  Jesmin, at the pilot’s controls, was visible through the forward port viewport, and the vehicle was already floating on its repulsors. Scut half ran, half dived through the side door into the main compartment.

  Myri overtook Voort and was next in. Voort followed, slapping the door controls. The compartment door slid shut. He was taken off his feet by the vehicle’s sudden acceleration. He landed in a forward-facing seat beside Myri. Directly ahead of him, strapping himself into a rear-facing seat, sat Scut. Bhindi was beside him, in the center seat opposite. The Clawdite had the rear-facing seat on the starboard side, Trey the forward-facing seat opposite him.

  Bhindi breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that was closer than I like.”

  Voort stared at her, eyes wide. “It’s not over yet. It’ll take them about thirty seconds to spot a vehicle this distinctive and you have a critically wounded Wraith. Who’s our medic?”

  Bhindi shook her head. “Still trying to recruit one. We’ve been pressed for time.”

  Scut stared at Voort, his eyes serene, that ridiculous smile still on his lips. “A mild burn, of no consequence. There is no need to worry.” His voice was curiously rough and did not at all match his demeanor.

  “No need—Bhindi, he’s in shock and he’s going to die if we don’t get medical care for him right now. You can smell the wound!”

  Bhindi waved his objection away. “As for our color scheme, in a couple of turns, Five will hit a console button. Our exterior will turn black and the lettering will fall off. We’re fine.”

  Voort opened his mouth for another protest, but Scut raised a hand to forestall him. “Here. I will show you how it is. I’m wearing a body pad of living tissue similar in composition to my mask.” He reached up as if to scratch his neck, but then he grip
ped rather than scratched, and pulled.

  He pulled his face off.

  It came away in a single piece, not just the face but every bit of his scalp and neck. The tissue made a repellent sucking noise as it came free.

  Beneath it were not denuded bone and muscle, but another face, this one thinner, a light gray in color. It had lean, angular features and black eyes that stared with an alien intensity. A sloping forehead and a heavy supraorbital ridge did nothing to soften his fierce aspect. This man had hair, thin and black, worn short.

  Voort felt himself grow faint, and the hair-bristles all over his body seemed to stand up. “You’re Yuuzhan Vong.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I am called Viull Gorsat.” The Yuuzhan Vong dropped the false face onto the floorboards between him and Voort. Next, he reached under the cuffs of his sleeves and peeled the skin of his hands away—clinging gloves of the same material as his false face. His true hands, underneath, were as gray as his true face. “My body pad was intended to give me dimensions suited to my face, not to act as armor. But it was a durable organism and gave its life to save mine.”

  Voort stared at Bhindi. “You’re working with a Yuuzhan Vong.”

  Bhindi nodded, placid, as if she’d just been informed that the atmosphere was breathable. “And a Clawdite and a Gamorrean and several humans, and, worst of all, a Corellian.”

  Myri shot her a dirty look from underneath her mop of silvery hair. “Cheap shot.”

  Bhindi returned her attention to Voort. “Voort, Scut is one of the Extolled—the caste they used to call the Shamed Ones. He suffered more at the hands of their military and ruling classes than you have.”

  “The Extolled are just as crazy as all the rest of them.” Voort stared at Bhindi, stunned that, with all her experience, she didn’t grasp this simple fact.