The rest of that night - and the better part of the next morning - was spent bolstering the defenses of a local restaurant that would be housing the banquet. It wasn't hard work, but it was incredibly time-consuming; the restaurant was a three-story building, and though only the bottom floor was the actual housing area for guests, each level was spacious enough to house a starship the size of Void.

Over the course of hours, Vhetin, Jay, and Brianna had to requisition durasteel armor sheets and security holocams from local offices in order to weld them or bolt them to the walls and ceiling, create detailed schematics of the building complex, as well as replace all the simple transparisteel windows with higher-grain material that would stop projectile bullets in case their sniper chose to show up again.

Brianna was speaking to the Imperial security team that would oversee the banquet, running them through certain drills and emergency procedures that would ensure the safety of the Governor and the other Imperials. Vhetin personally thought it was a waste of time; these were stormtrooper grunts in their usual reflective white armor. They barely had the intelligence to tell the barrel of a blaster apart from the handgrip, let alone protect their employers if the restaurant came under attack. Just to be safe, however, Brianna had some of the troopers go plainclothes for the banquet, so they wouldn't be so easily picked out of the crowd.

Of all three of the hunters, though, Jay had to have the most tedious job of all. She had been tasked with sweeping all three floors for bombs or IEDs - Improvised Explosive Devices. And while the Imperial scanners provided some accuracy when searching for explosives, the majority of her search had to be done manually. And that meant checking every cabinet, every sub-basement, every desk drawer personally.

Her job was also the most important, since they had learned from Tish Wouta in subsequent hours that Uruc was planning on smuggling in her newly-built hydro-conversion bomb. There was every chance that the bomb was already hidden within the restaurant, so Jay did not have the luxury of gliding through her task; she was forced to search every nook and cranny of the building with painstaking concentration.

After she'd finished her inspection of the level-three ventilation shafts and returned to the main floor covered in dust, she had reported that the building was all clear. No sign of any explosives or the hydro-conversion bomb. Vhetin was almost relieved, but at the same time worried even more. That meant they still didn't know where the damn bomb was.

Vhetin himself ran a check of the restaurant's minimal security systems, perusing through all the files on the building's database for any anomalies in case Uruc had planted a bug or virus in the system. His search found nothing out of the ordinary, but he inserted one of Jaing Skirata's custom self-monitoring diagnostic programs into the database just to be sure; the program would alert him if anything in the system accessed any areas it wasn't supposed to.

And all that was just the physical labor. They also had run checks through all the guests, interview all the restaurant's staff in case Uruc had infiltrated already, and bring the governor up to speed on what they'd found.

Vhetin and Jay were currently explaining the situation to Governor Vonn and Lieutenant Floren. Brianna balanced on a ladder behind them, welding an inch-thick sheet of durasteel against the wall, ignoring the indignant cries of the Sullustan restaurant owners as she placed the drab metal sheets over the intricately-carved walls.

"And you trust your contact?" Vonn said nervously, wringing his wrinkled hands and staring out the new windows, to the driving rain outside. "Uruc will definitely strike the banquet?"

"It makes sense, given all that we've found out," Jay said, nodding. "It's the biggest target in all of Saiton; everywhere else is buttoned down for the hurricane."

"Won't she be frightened away by your security measures?" Floren asked, watching Brianna weld the durasteel plates to the wall as the restaurant owners shouted at her, pounding on the lowest rung of the ladder resentfully.

"Our precautions are all relatively low-key," Vhetin said. "The durasteel will be covered up by fancy wallpaper, and the high-grain transparisteel doesn't look any different than the old windows. I hid the security cams myself, so they're next to invisible. Best-case scenario is that she won't even know they're there."

There was a tremendous crash as Brianna fell off the ladder, shaken loose by the angry restaurant owners. She landed hard and crashed through a rare wooden table set up with crystalline glasses and plates, sending glass and wood shards everywhere. She cursed fluently in Mando'a as she struggled to free herself from the pristine white tablecloth, grabbing for her pistols and shouting at the Sullustans, who just gibbered back at her.

Jay bit back a grin and said, "I should probably go and help out before she shoots someone."

As Jay moved to help the other huntress, Vhetin turned to Floren and said, "There won't be anything to worry about, because you'll be right here with the rest of us."

The young lieutenant started and said, "Me? Why?"

"I need you in the security station on the third floor," Vhetin said, "keeping an eye on the feed from the holocams. You'll be our eyes and ears during the banuqet."

"But why?" Floren looked very nervous at the possibility of being present if - when - Uruc attacked.

"Because there's going to be over a hundred guests," he said patiently. "Too many for even my HUD to keep track of. You'll need to watch everyone very carefully. If anything looks suspicious, just comm us and we'll investigate."

The young lieutenant nodded, gulping audibly. In the background, the shouting match between Brianna and the Sullustans had grown to an almost deafening volume, and Vhetin glanced at the thin rectangular window at the top of his HUD that showed his helmet's 360-degree vision. Jay had a hand on Brianna's arm, keeping her from pulling her pistol as the older huntress gestured angrily at the alien restaurant owners, her shouting sporadically mixed with words in Coruscant Underspeak, Huttese, and Mando'a. It looked like Jay had the situation more or less under control, so Vhetin beckoned for the governor to follow him to a quieter area of the restaurant.

"While we were investigating," Vhetin murmured, almost too quiet to hear even to his own ears, "we also dug up an extra motive for Uruc."

"Oh?" Vonn said, raising an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"

"In a word: you."

The governor blinked, his face turning almost as white as his hair. "M-me?" he stammered. "Why me?"

Vhetin stared into the governor's fear-filled eyes unsympathetically, searching for signs that the old man was lying or holding back information. But as far as he could tell, the Imperial was truly surprised by his words. After a moment Vhetin glanced around the room to ensure everyone was out of earshot, then murmured, "Tell me about your deployment on Jabiim."

"Jabiim?" Vonn said. "It... it was a typical year-long military rotation during the Clone Wars. It was a very hard planet to take; the Separatists were dug in, and we met resistance from the natives as well."

"Why didn't you tell us that you were stationed there?"

"I didn't think about it," the governor replied. "I... I thought it-"

"It just slipped your mind that Uruc was a member of the Jabiimi Resistance Movement while you were serving there? Did you pay attention to the natives whose lives you destroyed? Even just for security's sake?"

"There were hundreds of death threats every day, Mandalorian," Vonn said, sounding almost proud of the fact. "Far too many for even a platoon of stormtroopers to filter through for genuine threats. I had more important factors to consider than the random bullying of a madwoman."

"So basically Jabiim was just a big battle that you saw from space?" Vhetin asked, his lip curling in newfound disgust for the old man.

"Yes," Vonn said, drawing himself up to his full height. "I was in command of hundreds of platoons of troops and squadrons of starships, one of the most respected tacticians in the entire Jabiim battle theater. I was one of the leaders of-"

"I don't give a damn about how many troops you commanded," Vhetin snapped, clenching his fists in anger. This was typical; he should have seen this coming. "You thought you could reduce a planet's surface to molten slag and just move on with no consequences? You self-centered hut'uun!"

"Now there's no need for such-"

"You need to understand, Governor," he interrupted, "that Uruc isn't here to wear away at the Empire's infrastructure. The whole point of everything she's done since coming to Mon Cal has always been about you. To kill you. And right now I have half a mind to let her."

Vonn's white-haired eyebrows pulled down in a scowl. "If you allow her to kill me, you will lose your paycheck."

"Wrong," Vhetin said. "I've been privately contracted by Imperial Intelligence, shebshead, and the contract is for Uruc. There are no penalties on my behalf for any loss of Imperial tech, materiel, or personnel. So I could just stand by and let Uruc fry your shebs to hell and I.I won't bat an eyelash as long as I bring her in."

Vonn scowled deeper but said nothing, at a loss for what to say in return. Eventually, he simply turned on his heel and stormed away, hands clasped tightly behind his back. Vhetin stared after him, then turned to find Jay standing right behind him, staring at him. Caught up in his argument with the Governor, he hadn't even seen her approach through his helmet's 360-degree vision.

He glared at her, even though the gaze was hidden behind his helmet. "What?"

She glanced after the governor, then said, "Would you really do that? Let Uruc kill him?"

"He certainly deserves it," he growled, stalking toward Brianna. She had apparently sorted out her argument with the restaurant owners, and had clambered back up the ladder and returned to her welding.

"I'm not disputing that," Jay said. "But I don't think it would be right to let Uruc shoot him. He's just a frail old man."

"I thought the whole reason you became a bounty hunter was to rid the galaxy of arrogant shabuire like him."

"He's just a frail old man," Jay repeated forcefully. "I was thinking more along the lines of bastards like General Luun. You know, people who are under sixty."

"Justice should not be subjective to the guilty being's age," Vhetin said. "Evil comes in all forms, and even frail old men can be murderers. But a murderer who revels in the task, who enjoys it... ah, shab. Makes me want to shoot him myself."

"What's up with you?" Jay asked, looking over at him. "Kassh was a murderer who reveled in killing people and you weren't this tense. What's wrong?"

"Tension, exhaustion, crankiness. Take your pick." He shook his helmeted head wearily and said, "Truthfully, it's all these damn Imperials. I can't stand them."

She chuckled. "Tell me about it. But what do you have against them? Did they throw you in jail for no reason too?"

He shook his head again, this time backing down from the question. "Ask me again when all this is over. I might tell you."

She smiled and said, "I'll hold you to it."

Vhetin stepped up to the ladder and slapped one of the lower rungs. Brianna jumped, obviously thinking the Sullustan owners had come back for round two. When she saw Vhetin and Jay, however, she relaxed and pushed her welding goggles up her forehead.

"You almost ready?" Vhetin asked her. "The banquet's in three hours."

She slapped a palm against the durasteel, then hopped nimbly off the ladder and landed some five feet down on the floor.

"Yep," she said, brushing her hands off on her pants. "All we have to do is get the wallpaper up and we should be able to pass all this off. Uruc could attack this place with an army and not get through."

"And what about the security forces? Are they trustworthy?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I ran a check through all their files, and everything clears. Except this one guy..."

Vhetin was instantly focused intently on her. "Which guy?"

"What?" she said. "Oh no, you misunderstand. His file checked out as well, he's just kind of hard to understand."

"Why?" Jay asked, folding her arms across her chest. "Doesn't he speak Basic?"

Brianna laughed. "Yeah, but only Old Basic for some reason. It's all 'thee' and 'thou' and 'thy' with him.

"In fact," she said, winking at Vhetin, "he's kind of cute, too. And he's probably a lot less moody than you are. I might just trade up."

Vhetin didn't let the jibe effect him. He just inclined his head slightly - a motion of irritation - and said, "A speech impediment is hardly a security problem."

She clapped him on the armored shoulder and grinned. "What's the matter, Stripes? Afraid of a little competition for my affection?"

He just stared at her, and she laughed again. "All right, calm down. I'm just messing with you."

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Jay asked. "In case you don't remember, we were almost killed by Uruc's hitmen, and it's almost a guarantee she's going to try and kill the governor."

Brianna grinned again, that same bright smile that was one of Vhetin's first memories of his time on Mandalore.

"This hunt is almost over," she said. "We're almost through here. That should be enough to vault even Vhetin into a good mood."

"Apparently not," Vhetin said, turning away and heading for the kitchens. There were still a lot of staff members to look over, and the banquet was in three hours. "Just keep your focus, Bri. We're not out of this yet."