"Where's Benb?" Pellaeon hit the ship's broadcast override. He needed the Sull.u.s.tan technician. "Supervisor Benb to the bridge immediately, please."

The bridge was in darkness to make the displays easier for operators to see; at action stations, concentration was intense and crew members might be stuck at a console for hours at a stretch. Occasionally, though, the darkness gave Pellaeon the impression that he was on a stage, staring into footlights, unable to see the faces of the audience but aware that he needed to give the performance of his life.

I'm not thinking about Hallena the whole time. Am I good, bad, callous?

He was doing what he had to do, for his ship and for those stranded back in JanFathal s.p.a.ce. The choice became starkly clear when he had to make it.

There's your attachment, Master Altis. It's a dilemma for us all, not just Jedi. And everyone handles it differently.

"Baradis, have you got a position for us yet?"

"Sir, we're in the Poressi system."

"We're way off, then." Pellaeon brought up the holochart to almost full magnification. A few seconds' deviation at supralight speeds translated into huge distances. It had just been a quick jump, a simple ploy to jump out of the area and then drop back in again minutes later on a different heading to spring an ambush. "But we need to know-is this a consistent fault, or random? We jumped from Kemla without any problems."

Benb trotted onto the bridge, probe wires trailing from his coverall pockets like festival streamers.

"I know, I know," he said irritably. "We're working on it."

Pellaeon now had absolute silence on the bridge. It was a small team anyway, fewer than twenty, but with the comms shut down it was eerily quiet. "Just tell me what it is."

"Put simply," Benb said, "the central chrono software that tells the ship's systems what time it is, so they can keep updating and sharing information exactly when they need to, is completely borked. That's what put the sensor displays out. And weapons targeting. And that's why you've jumped somewhere you weren't expecting."

Navigation was largely about time. Navigation beacons relied on precisely timed signals; ships worked out their positions by speed and bearing over a given time. It was all done by nav computers now, but the basic principles were the same as when Pellaeon took his yacht out on the open sea.

"Can it be fixed, and if so-how long?"

"Complete system shutdown. Purge and reboot, then run checks. Six standard hours."

Pellaeon looked at Baradis and Derel. "Can the calcs be done manually, or at least without a working chrono?"

"Yes." Baradis didn't sound confident. "But they're so complex that it's all we'll be able to do."

"Can you put this ship in the right place at the right time faster than Benb's team can get the systems back up?"

"Yes, if I can divert crew and computing power to do the calcs-and the engineers can engage the drive on my signal and maintain a set speed." Baradis snapped his fingers to demonstrate. "Start, put your boot to the metal, and stop. It's the basic stop-chrono and chart technique that submersibles use."

"Do it," said Pellaeon. "I want us back in JanFathal orbit as fast as you can. Derel-I want a manual solution for cannon and turbolasers."

"So, do you want me to carry on working on the system or not?" Benb asked, glancing down at the fob chrono clipped to his breast pocket.

"Not unless you can do it without shutting down all systems."

"I can't," he said. "I'll just bypa.s.s the chrono so you've got manual control, then." Civilians weren't bound by the etiquette of service life, and they knew it. A civilian contractor could tell a captain that his plan sucked without fear of the consequences. "But if it takes you four hours to calculate that jump, and it doesn't work, then it's six hours to fully reboot on top of that delay, remember..."

Pellaeon wondered if anything more than minutes was going to make a difference now. But all he could do was pull out all the stops and do it as fast as he could.

"I'll remember," he said.

Coc.o.o.ned in the relatively small world of a warship's bridge, some commanding officers forgot there was the equivalent of a small city around them, full of beings with their own doubts and questions. Pellaeon never did. It was why he walked the lower decks so often, why he had to see everything for himself, and why he refused the isolated privileges of rank like having his own dining room and chef.

"Rumahn, make sure section heads keep their personnel informed about why we're twiddling our thumbs in the middle of nowhere at the moment. And I'll address the ship's company personally." The sound levels on the bridge rose a little as offi-cers began moving and talking quietly again. They thought the situation was under control. Yes, this was theater, and projecting confidence created confidence. "Derel, how many weapons can we aim using manual targeting alone?"

It was the longest wait of Pellaeon's life. Meriones showed up with caf and snacks for the bridge crew at intervals, forcing the captain to revise his view of the boy as a chinless rodent who'd struck lucky in his choice of sire. Everyone found their level in this war, and even the likes of Meriones came up trumps sometimes.

As Pellaeon watched Derel patching feeds from external cams through to the bridge monitors, he wondered what would have happened to the Republic if it hadn't conveniently found a remarkably well-trained, well-equipped, ready-made army and a fleet to go with it. The most serious conflict that Pellaeon had been involved in before this all-out galactic war was interdiction: anti-piracy patrols. There wasn't a nonclone officer in the Republic who could be described as ready for this kind of war. After just a few months of this most unforgiving of training on the job, an awful lot still weren't. Without the clone army-the clone navy-the Separatists would have rolled straight over the Republic's inexperienced, police-action fleet.

Very convenient, all these clones.

Someone knew we'd need them. When did they start planning it, though? And why?

It was the kind of question that anyone would ask if they'd experienced the glacial speed of Republic procurement. Pellaeon wasn't fussed about getting an answer right then, but it had played on his mind more than once in the last few months. He expected to find dirty politics at the heart of it. Was there any other kind?

"Don't worry, sir, it's going fine," Baradis said, not looking up from the four datapads spread in front of him on the console. From time to time, his comlink chirped and someone read a string of numbers to him. "We'll have this sorted in a couple of hours."

Pellaeon realized he'd been drumming his fingers on the console. Baradis had read that as impatience rather than anxiety. Yes, that was inevitable, but Pellaeon was gripped now by a much rarer phenomenon-self-doubt.

I really did do this because I was tasked to extract an agent-any agent. Didn't I?

So my personal motives aren't an issue here.

Or are they right about me? Do I lack the right stuff because I can't resist a pretty face? Have I endangered my ship and my crew for personal motives?

There was nothing more he could do now except wait. Next time Leveler jumped, she had to get it right-if only to avoid emerging from hypers.p.a.ce too close to a star. Derel beckoned to him and indicated the monitors.

"There you go, sir." He pulled back one of the seats. "Bypa.s.s the computers. We can get range and bearing with the manual targeting laser, check visually via the external holocams, and fire from here. Basic artillery skills. We're all cross-trained."

You call us mongrels, don't you? I overhear things around the ship. Regular beings dismiss you as subhuman, artificial, and you bite back by regarding us as random accidents of existence.

"Good work, Derel," Pellaeon said. "I'll leave you to select your gunnery team. Again, I reflect on how lucky we are to inherit a combat-ready force."

Derel made a show of busying himself with checking the laser calibration panel. "Before you ask, sir, I don't know much about our commissioning process, either. The Jedi paid up front, I hear."

"Jolly decent of them," Pellaeon said. "How are we doing, Commander?"

Baradis rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, eyes looking bloodshot. Meriones appeared out of nowhere with more caf.

Ah, he missed his vocation. A steward.

"Getting there, sir."

Pellaeon opened his comlink and patched into the ship's broadcast system. A word of rea.s.surance from the old man always worked wonders; there was nothing worse than being hunkered down in an engine s.p.a.ce or some isolated compartment and not knowing what the stang was going on.

"D'ye hear there," he said. He always stuck to procedure. "This is the captain. We'll be jumping back to JanFathal s.p.a.ce sometime in the next two hours-rough estimate-and the nav calcs are being done manually, just so we have no more..."

He was cut short by one of the sensor operators. "Contact, range three hundred klicks, bearing zero-zero-five off the port bow, elevation forty-two. Ship out of hypers.p.a.ce." The whole bridge went silent. "Confirmed, sir, it's Wookiee Gunner."

"Comms, please." Pellaeon had to warn the Jedi freighter that encryption had been broken. "Wookiee Gunner, be aware we're on an open channel."

A female voice came over the comlink. "Understood." There was a pause. "We'll pa.s.s that to Fleet so they can make the nec-essary adjustments. Wait one."

"Good grief, sir, they're getting very naval," Baradis muttered.

Pellaeon was impressed that they'd located Leveler. Jedi senses seemed able to beat scanners some days. "Remind me never to complain about mystic imprecision again."

It seemed like a very long wait. Pellaeon counted down the minutes and seconds on the bulkhead chrono, the a.n.a.log device that didn't rely on the ship's computer.

Wookiee Gunner came back on the comm net at last.

"This is Jedi Ash Jarvee. Fleet Comms says they've now changed code keys and that comms are secure again. You can safely make contact."

Well, at least Pellaeon could now explain the size of the problem, even if Fleet could do nothing about it within the time frame except make sympathetic noises. And he could try to maintain contact with Rex and Skywalker.

"Thank you," he said. "I thought you'd be at Yarille by now."

"And we thought you needed a hand. Can we help in any way?"

"Nav computers are beyond the reach of the Force, but thank you for the comm a.s.sist."

"Oh, you'd be surprised what we can do." Ash sounded amused. "Callista's the most skilled with computers, but Master Altis has taught us some useful Force techniques that he's discovered on his travels. Permission to come aboard?"

Baradis raised an eyebrow. Pellaeon decided now was as good a time as any to abandon a data-rational approach. If Jedi were smart enough to pre-order a few million clones and a fleet, then they probably knew more about the Republic's armed forces and its systems than they were letting on.

Why they did-didn't matter right now.

"Permission granted," Pellaeon said.

OCCUPIED ATHAR, JANFATHAL.

"You'd think they'd deploy vulture droids." Coric steered the shuttle into a column of smoke in the upper atmosphere and followed it all the way down to the surface. He seemed to be confident flying on sensors, but Altis still maintained a watch in the Force for unseen hazards. "They could have brought us down anytime. Couldn't they?"

"We're more use as collateral and interrogation material than we are as a barbecue," Rex said. "Besides, shooting us down would mean they realized we were a threat. And I don't think they ever learn just how much damage a handful of wets can do to them."

"Wets?" asked Callista.

"Organics." Rex gestured. "The likes of you and me."

Coric banked left and suddenly the shuttle was in clear air, fifty meters above a blackened maze of streets on the north bank of the river, the city-center side of the disputed bridge. Altis caught a glimpse of it over the sergeant's shoulder as the shuttle swooped low behind the cover of the last towers still standing. He appeared to be heading for the ma.s.sive arches of a viaduct.

And following him was Anakin Skywalker's Torrent fighter.

Altis didn't even need to look at the sensor screen to know that. Skywalker's presence in the Force couldn't be ignored. It was like being trailed by a whirlpool, a faint but definite sense of being on the edge of something that might drag in everything it touched.

It was going to be interesting to meet him face-to-face. Not the most perfect of settings, but. . . no, this was ideal; the mea-sure of a man was in the extremes, on the brink of death, not in polite discussion.

"So what's the plan?" Ince asked. The shuttle pa.s.sed into deep shadow and settled on its dampers. As soon as Coric cut the drives, Altis could hear the sporadic thumping of laser cannon hitting something. "I'm up for anything that involves payback for Vere, sir."

They have no time to deal with grief. Maybe that's for the best.

"Let's see what General Skywalker plans," Rex said. "Personally, I like the idea of liberating a few Sep a.s.sault tanks and seeing how much damage we can do before they stop us."

"And then getting out," Geith said.

"That has its appeal, too, I admit."

Altis drew his lightsaber before he stepped out of the shuttle, ready to deflect incoming bolts, but the Separatists' attention was elsewhere. Ahsoka and Callista jumped down to flank him.

"Careful, sir," Rex said.

"I'm always surprised by this." Altis inhaled the smoke in the air. "In the middle of battles, there are always these little pockets of quiet. The boundary between life and death is very slim."

On the south side of the river, civilians were already venturing out of the buildings and standing around in bewildered groups. Altis wanted to go to them and find the injured, to try to help, but he had to make a choice; all he could do here was help a few.

But it matters to them.

His failing was indecision, and he knew it. A greed for happy solutions. His priority had to be the Jedi and troops with him. There was no greater inherent virtue in saving strangers, however much the idea had been elevated into something more laudable, a curious idea that the act of detachment itself somehow made the lives saved more valid.

All about the giver, not the receiver.

"Here's the general," Rex said, crouching in the cover of a brick arch. "You've been in combat before, then, sir?"

"Small skirmishes," Altis said. Skywalker-behind him, to the left-now felt like the heat of a furnace when the doors were opened. "Little wars that escaped the Republic's attention. I used to call it peacekeeping, but I do so hate euphemism. I fought."

Altis turned. Anakin Skywalker, blue lightsaber in hand, ran at a crouch from another arch of the aqueduct to join them.

So this is the Chosen One.

"Master Skywalker," Altis said. "I knew Qui-Gon Jinn. Fine man.

Skywalker gave him a polite nod. Altis reached out and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. It was curiosity as much as greet-ing; and what he felt gave him such a jolt that he felt he understood much more and yet had a thousand more questions.

Time slowed. A second to everyone around him-but an eternity to Altis.

Skywalker seethed within, not with anger, nothing clearly negative like that. . . no, it was a strange blend of fear, desperate love, and guilt. Altis could almost taste it. He wondered if other Jedi had detected it, this obsessive, terrified pa.s.sion for someone or something that the lad seemed to think was his last chance, the last thing he could bear to lose after everything else he cared about had gone. It was more than love. It had pa.s.sed beyond that into a liability, something that could be used to bring him to heel as surely as a choke-chain on an akk. And it wasn't greed or ambition-it was focused on another living being.

Unrequited love?

No, Altis didn't sense that at all, no confused yearning to know what words or actions might do the trick and secure a second glance from the beloved. Skywalker exuded certainty. But it was certainly forbidden love, whatever the circ.u.mstances, be-cause Yoda would not allow the manifestation of what Skywalker felt.

Either they feel this in him, and they refuse to accept what it is, or they don't recognize pa.s.sionate love.

Altis knew that kind of love when he sensed it because his community was awash with it.

But he got that inevitable feeling that he should help because there was something else looming, something unhappy, but it was too vague to pin down. The whole messy storm of emotion was something he never came across in his own relaxed community. Skywalker might have found some peace there. Driving this underground would simply make it toxic, dangerous, ripe for distortion.

Yoda will not take kindly to you poaching his Jedi, even by accident. Find another way to help this lad.

"I'm always pleased to meet his friends, Master," Skywalker said. Suddenly the present returned to normal time, a second pa.s.sed. "Preferably in a more social setting, though. Shall we find some better transport and get off this planet?" He jerked his thumb in the direction of the fighting, eyes on the signs of a battle raging a kilometer or two east that was marked by palls of smoke and the hammering chatter of blasterfire. "They're still landing battle droids and organics. That means they've got troop carriers touching down. And I've seen at least three CR-twenties."