Author's Note: This chapter heavily references events from "On Wings of Silver and Lead", which is the first installment of the Mockingbird series. If you haven't done so already, I suggest reading "Wings" at some point. It might clear up some things.

Ghosting

"Who said nights were for sleep?"

- Marilyn Monroe

He paced in the darkness, his exultation too powerful to contain. What glory, what beauty he had unleashed today. It sent shivers down his spine.

His hands wandered restlessly across his body; stroking his clothes into place, running through his hair, skipping across the few items in his kill nest. Again and again his eyes traveled to the collection of screens. They were filled with images of his art. Wherever he looked, flames danced across the flatscreens; powerful, glorious, furious….hungry.

He was shaking with emotions so intense, he felt as if in a fever. He knew he was here for a specific purpose, but for now, he could not recall what it had been. His eyes could only take in the fire and the sheep: the fire that fed and the sheep that burned and died and suffered.

And for once, The Rational did not interfere in his fixation. There were no whispered warnings in his mind, no words of logic to dampen his animalistic euphoria. He was free to float on his success, because The Rational was thinking.

It had been near silent since yesterday, which had allowed him to reveal this masterpiece today. Without The Rational in the back of his mind to restrain his actions, he was a rabid dog free to indulge in his bloodlust. And he was hungryhungryhungryhungry

He had to go back. He needed to see it again, even if only the ashes remained now. Breathing in the last remnants of the heat he had created would be enough to bring him back to that moment of glorious revelation. He would only need to smell the memory of the smoke-heavy air, feel the ash running through his fingers to see what he had done as if it were still happening.

Yes, he would go. Right now. He turned to go, then stopped, waiting. Waiting for the familiar voice of The Rational to speak, to advise him, judge him. But it remained silent. It was still thinking, still searching for answers. It had spotted something that had upset it greatly yesterday, and The Rational was determined to find out what it was. So it was preoccupied. Which left him to do as he pleased without it to govern his actions.

He smiled and left the dim light of the screens behind to disappear into the darkness. In the empty kill nest, the images of flaming death continued on an endless loop, with only the darkness as a witness now.

The parade grounds, Eyat Command Base, five klicks outside of Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (25 – 26 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)

The parade grounds were fully lit, the stark whiteness of the searchlights creating sharply defined patterns of shadows and illumination.

Those troopers that were off-duty at the moment – and Gaff had tried to make that as many as possible – were gathered on the precisely cut lawn, grouped in a loose half-circle in front of the officers.

The searchlights washed over them, the whiteness of the light blending with the white armor, making the troopers gleam a little. Behind them, their shadows stretched backwards, elongated until they were nearly unrecognizable as human-shaped, their tops disappearing into the settling night beyond.

Gaff thought it rather looked like a company of ghost soldiers were standing in attendance behind their living brothers and felt a shiver run down his spine. Where had such fanciful thoughts come from, all of a sudden?

He focused his attention on the living men about him, his brown eyes sweeping those under his command. "Buckets off," he called, his voice carrying easily through the silent night.

In a single synchronized movement, over a hundred troopers released their helmet seals and placed the buckets at their feet. Though Gaff couldn't see them, he knew that the other officers, grouped behind him, had done the same.

Gaff swept the assembled crowd, his eyes lingering this time over every face. He knew these men; had known them since his time in the crèche. This was F Company, whom he had trained with, bled with, laughed and sweated with for ten years.

There was Deek, who tended to mash all of his food into one pile, before shoveling it into his mouth.

He saw Fince and Notch, standing side by side, the first in F Company to declare themselves brothers by choice.

Mekk was standing next to Ezec, who looked dourer than ever and was scowling at the tips of his boots. Mekk on the other hand, was glancing anxiously from one trooper to the next, biting his lower lip as if he wanted to ask one of his continuous questions, but knew exactly that doing so now would only get him into trouble.

There was Sikker, who talked boisterously about women, but privately preferred the company of his brothers. And Lopo who had a fancy for Mon Cala ballet and two of his larty pilots, Radar and Gos, who were always betting with each other about anything that would come into their minds.

In the crowd of faces, so similar and yet so different, he could name each and every one of his men, their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses.

To his right stood Kase; straight-backed and rigid, a man who loved the rules, but had little imagination and never mourned that fact. A good brother to have at his side; a rock to lean on, if a commander had need of such a thing.

And to his left was Wess, exhausted and a little heartsick over recent events. A man who put the well being of others before his own, always.

These were good men and they were his men: his to command, to lead and to keep safe on the battlefield. And today, he had failed ten of them.

Despite the attendance of so many living, he could not help but notice the absence of those ten. They'd never stand before him again, he would never talk to them again, never again listen to Pryce's growing collection of jokes or reprimand Tri, Lim and Spotter for sneaking off to play limmie. They were irretrievably gone; their bodies incinerated at the local morgue with the rest of today's dead. Gaff could have insisted on having the bodies transferred to the base, but it had seemed fitting to him to have the physical remains of his men incinerated along with the other victims. They had died together in a blaze, so let them go to their final resting place together in another fire. Besides, it had been a more dignified process than putting the bodies through the base's recyclers, as protocol demanded.

He banished the memories of that shiny white morgue from his mind and finished his visual sweep of his remaining men. He cleared his throat, making sure that he had everyone's attention. He'd put a lot of thought into this, including wondering if he should call this assembly in the first place. On the frontlines, he knew, there would be no time to mourn the dead; to gather as a unit like this and take a few precious minutes out of their schedules to be together in their mutual grief. Out on a battlefield, such sentimentality would most likely get even more of his troopers killed. Bunch up like this and they were nothing but a target.

What had convinced him of the idea was the realization that they weren't on the frontlines at this moment. F Company had the unique luxury of time and Gaff was determined to make the best usage of that. In the past, he'd given his men extra time off, shuffling shifts and duties for each squad. Now, he would use the time to pay his respects to Fallout and his squad.

"You all know why we are here," he told the waiting troopers. "Today, we lost ten of our brothers. Sergeant Fallout and his men may not have died in the line of fire," Gaff mentally winced at the idiom, but continued on without a pause, "but they did die in the performance of their duty."

Some of the gathered troopers nodded, others stared down at the buckets at their feet or at one another. This was hard on them, Gaff knew. It was hard on him. F Company had never lost a brother before, not in all their years together on Kamino. Somehow, Gaff couldn't help but feel as if this were his fault. He was their commander; he was responsible for them. He should have found a way to keep his men – all of his men – safe and alive. Another part of him – the cool, professional part – told him that it hadn't been his fault. F Company's luck had to run out eventually and realistically, there'd been no way for Gaff to predict today's vicious attack. This was war and men died in war, that was the truth. But that didn't stop the crushing pain of loss or the heavy agony of failure. He would just have to learn to live with it and carry on for the rest of his men. The realization had hit him today that he might very soon have to do this again, once F Company was sent to the frontlines.

"We won't forget our brothers," Gaff went on, noticing he'd been silent for too long. "And we won't forget their sacrifice. Because of these ten brothers, a group of children is alive today and I think we all know that is something our brothers would have been proud of to be remembered for."

Murmured agreement from some, tearing eyes from others. Gaff looked at his men and felt a weight settle on his shoulders and a hard fist clench inside his chest. How long? He wondered. How long until I look about and see more empty spaces where brothers should be?

For as long as I can make it, he answered himself and raised his chin defiantly to the night and the creeping shadows about the ring of troopers. He was their commander and he would fight for his men, even if it meant outsmarting death itself. That was his duty.

"Ni su'cuyi," he called out into the night, remembering the words taught to him by Alpha-17.

"Ni su'cuyi!" came the answering cry from the troopers about him.

"Gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum!"

Again, the gathered clones repeated his words, the chant gaining in force as the troopers voiced their grief, anger and fear through the words.

Gaff took a deep breath, then added the final piece of the ancient Mandalorian remembrance. "Fallout! Lim! Tresh! Spotter! Tri! Fok! Kyri!"

The names reverberated around him, echoing through the parade grounds as the rest of F Company repeated the names of their fallen brothers. Around them, the shadows trembled, as if in fright.

"Orar! Tal! Pryce!"

The last name lingered in the air, as if reluctant to vacate the area. A silence began to settle over the parade grounds as every trooper there paused to listen to the echoes of those names. A last roll call for the dead.

Gaff lowered his head in respect, letting that silence settle itself over the troopers, blanketing them as he remembered his lost men, honoring them in the privacy of his own mind. He would say those names every night, until the day he was killed and he would do so for every other trooper. It was his duty as commander to honor his fallen.

"Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la!" He said more quietly this time, letting the ancient Mando'a sink into the silence, rather than breaking it.

But his men heard nevertheless. Kase was the first to repeat the words, quickly followed by Wess and the other officers. The rest of F Company followed suit, repeating the words like a healing chant.

Not gone, merely marching far away.

Outside of the circle of light cast by the searchlights, the shadows flickered and waned behind the troopers, holding their own silent vigil.

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adic, ni partayli, gar darasuum.

The words made Wren shiver.

I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

He'd learned those words so many years ago, when he'd just been a cadet. Back then, when he'd still been Alpha-20, those words had held an almost mystical power over him. He'd thought, at the time, that they sounded powerful. It had been a promise between brothers and to Alpha-20, who'd later be nicknamed Wrench by his dearest brother, there'd been nothing better in the entire galaxy.

But he was no longer that boy. Alpha-20 had died along with his brother Asher, and Wrench had soon followed suit. He was a man now, exiled from the life he'd been bred for, caught in a world that even after three years still appeared strange to him sometimes.

And as a man – as Wren – he hated those words with a passion. He hated the sound they made, hated the way they rolled off of a trooper's tongue and most of all…he hated what they stood for.

Standing in the entrance to the base, concealed by the shadows, Wren watched F Company mourn their dead and felt old, bitter memories rise inside of him like bile.

Remembrance. It was such a joke. It was supposed to be a pact between close comrades and friends, a means of always honoring that person and keeping their memory close. For the clones, particularly those who'd grown up steeped in the Mandalorian culture, saying remembrance for a dead brother had been a certainty, a promise made by boys who had no other family.

But no one had ever said remembrance for Asher. After Wren had dragged himself back to the ARCs' barracks – bleeding and bruised after his fight with Fett – no one had asked where he'd been or where Asher – Alpha-19 – was. When the cadets had woken the next morning and had seen that Asher's sleep bunker was still empty, they hadn't asked his closest brother about it. They'd known what had happened. Alpha-19 had been measured and found wanting and had been terminated by the Kaminoans as a result. And no one had ever said his name again. Not in casual conversation, not late at night and certainly not in remembrance.

Wren knew, because he'd spent his days and nights listening for the sound of Asher's name on the lips of his brother ARCs.

It had been the same when, years later, Wren's only other close brother, Thrush, had died by his own hand. There'd never been a confirmed report and Wren, the only witness to the act, had been ordered on pain of reconditioning to remain silent on the matter. But in a close environment like Tipoca, there'd been no chance of keeping a clone's suicide secret for long. There'd been rumors and speculations; nebulous, but enough to cast doubts upon Thrush's memory. He'd never been mentioned in anyone else's remembrance either, as far as Wren knew. Not even by the few men who had survived the training accident that had decimated Thrush's company. Again, he knew this, because he'd been listening for it.

Wren didn't say remembrance. He didn't need it. He needed no words to remind him of his dead brothers. They were with him every day, every waking moment and more often than not in his dreams as well. Wren was their remembrance. As long as he lived, his brothers – disgraced in the eyes of other clones and forcefully forgotten – would be remembered.

What were empty words and promises compared to that?

And what do these kriffing shinies need Mando'a for, anyway, he thought savagely as the last of the names faded into the night. These grunts hadn't been raised by Mandalorians, but by Kaminoan overseers, flash training and whatever other bounty hunters Fett had managed to scrape together.

The only valid bit of Mandalorian culture they'd ever been taught was Vode An and even that had been flash trained into them. The rest had just trickled down from the commandos and ARCs. If the grunts thought that reciting a few phrases in Mando'a made them anything but clones, then they were sorely mistaken. You couldn't change what you were.

The chant had quieted down and silence now blanketed the lit parade grounds, but Wren found the silence almost as abrasive as the chanting earlier. All these memories coupled with the events of today made him feel restless and agitated. He felt caged, standing here in this base full of equipment and troops that weren't really needed to do this job. What was he doing here except wasting what time he had left?

You were being useful when you were helping the Jedi, a treacherous voice whispered at the back of his mind. And hadn't he felt more alive in those instances than he'd had in the two months he'd been stuck on this backwater boondocks of a planet?

It doesn't effing matter, he thought at the voice. She chose fekking Gaff over me.

It was the wrong thing to recall at that moment, because the memory of her walking away from him with Gaff's hand on the small of her back just made him want to hit something.

No longer able to contain the rage inside of him, Wren turned towards the nearest solid thing at hand: the wall next to the entrance. With a barely suppressed snarl, Wren kicked the wall, then followed the motion with a quick jab and a punch. Both his hands sang from the collision and Wren felt the blood pound in his veins, the buzz in his head as his rage finally surfaced.

He hated this. He hated everything. He hated this base for its uselessness; hated the Gaftikari for their pettiness; hated the troopers for their false faiths and brotherhood; hated the bomber for killing; hated ten men for dying on a simple patrol.

And he hated her. Hated her for walking into his life and reminding him of what it felt like to be useful. He hated her for making him laugh again. He hated her for her laughter and her smiles. But most off all, he hated her for turning her back on him.

The sensation of something running over his right hand brought him back. Wren brought the hand closer to his face, narrowing his eyes to see better in the darkness. There was blood on his hand. It ran over his knuckles, coated his fingers and was slipping between the cracks and onto his palm. The blood was practically black from where he was standing in the shadows.

Reflexively, Wren glanced down and around him, but there was no commando lying dead at his feet, his face battered into an unrecognizable pulp by his fists. Wren closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to get himself back under control. When he felt his pulse dropping closer to normal, he opened his eyes again and examined his hand more critically. The blood was his, the skin along the knuckles was torn open. His left hand was in no better condition. He looked at the wall and saw smears of his blood along one area. He touched the stains with two fingers and felt a definite hollow in the prefab.

He had to get out of here.

Not for the first time did it occur to Wren that he could simply pack his gear and go AWOL. The kriff knew there'd be no one here who wouldn't love to see the last of him and his ARC training would make it easy. He could be systems away before they'd even know he was gone and then have three dozen false trails to follow. He could do it.

But what was really out there for him? He had skills, but in the greater galaxy, the only thing those skills qualified him for was either mercenary or bounty hunter work.

He'd never be a bounty hunter. Jango Fett had called himself the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy and Wren would never touch anything that Fett had once called his own. Besides, Mandalorians dominated that trade and he hated Mandos almost as much as he hated their former leader.

And what was the difference between being a mercenary and being a soldier? Nothing, other than that he would be paid.

In the end, Wren decided to stay out of the same reasons he always did. The GAR was his meal ticket. He might not have any rights, but the Republic provided him with food, shelter and all the blasters and explosives he could possibly want. And all they wanted in payment was his life. It was a bargain he could live with. As a merc, he'd have to deal with competition, with finding employment, catering to the employer. And he'd always be looking over his shoulder for the Republic and whatever watchdogs they sent after AWOL clones. Because Wren wasn't anywhere naïve enough to believe that the Republic would just let him disappear. He was their property and this war was a pretty good example of the Republic's issue with letting go of things that belonged to it.

So he was here to stay. But he had to get out of the base.

Wren ducked into the darkened corridors, making his way to his barracks with only the red emergency lights to illuminate the way for him. There was no one else in the corridors. Aside from the three troopers in the MTCC, everyone still on the base was assembled on the parade ground.

Wren slipped into the barracks, made his way to his bunk and pulled out his backpack. The pack was already stocked with his gear. Wren kept himself battle ready at all times, so he only had to slip the pack onto his back and he was ready to go.

He'd considered going into the city, blowing off steam with some woman and then wandering the streets, looking for GFH. With Kezner incarcerated, those whacks were certain to be restless and a lone clone would be a tempting target. But the city was also heavily patrolled tonight by both clones and police and he'd seen the grid plans. The pattern was tight and he didn't want to spend his free hours dodging patrols.

He wanted to…no, needed to hit something. Something hard and something that could fight back and he wanted to do so repeatedly. And there was only one place where he could get that.

Wren went through the base like a ghost.

No one saw him. In his first week on Gaftikar he'd perfected a program that would allow him, via his HUD, to delete any footage the security cams might have of him and replace it with shots of the empty corridor. Technically, the program was unnecessary, seeing that he kept his wanderings mostly to his off-duty hours and he was supposed to be free to do as he liked during that time. But using the program, making sure that he slipped away unnoticed was part of the challenge and he didn't want anyone finding out where he went. That was private and in a world where privacy mostly existed inside of your head, it was a precious commodity. And Wren intended to guard it well.

Once outside of the base, he kept to the shadows, working his way towards the security fence and the southeastern gate. Slicing through the security lock was easy and the little door opened on silent hinges.

Wren hesitated for a moment, staring into the darkness beyond the fence, then glancing back over his shoulder at the brightly lit parade ground. Just to the side of the grounds, half-lit by the searchlights, he could make out the outlines of the Mockingbird.

His eyes swept over the starship's sleek lines, admiring the crescent shape of the wings. She looked fast and she looked mean; a starship ready for anything. Whoever had built her had known what he was doing.

Having gotten a last glance at the ship, Wren ducked out of the gate and headed towards the looming forest at a loping gait. The scorched and chipped white of his armor briefly flashed in the reflected glow of the base's lights and then he was gone, swallowed by the darkness and the trees.

Onboard the Mockingbird…

Ro tossed and turned in restless sleep, her mind plagued by half-formed impressions of the last days, fleeting images, snippets of phrases and meaningless words.

After a short meal, she had basically fallen into bed, taking only the time to pull on a nightshirt. She'd been out like a light before she'd even hit the mattress. Her exhaustion had granted her a few hours of deep, dreamless sleep, but now that the worst of her body's fatigue had been taken care of, her subconscious was busy trying to make sense of everything that had happened since she'd come here.

Too many things didn't add up and what her waking mind hadn't had the opportunity to address, her subconscious was now trying to puzzle out.

With a low moan, Ro threw herself to the side, her face contorting into a grimace.

….hot, everything was so hot….no way this fire is detonite based…why can't I feel you?...Nothing Man…he's a Nothing Man…the others never saw him…the plastoid had melted to reveal the trooper's cheek…the stink of burned flesh and bone….Wren's head snapped to the side with the force of her slap...Nothing Man….Nothing Man….

It was Owen's voice, repeating those words over and over again that finally wrenched her awake. Gasping, she lay perfectly still. For a moment, Ro was overcome with a terrible sense of disorientation as she tried to recall where she was. It seemed as if all the planets she'd ever traveled to had conspired to melt into a single entity that was all of them and none of them at the same time.

Fighting down a rising sense of panic, she finally remembered. Gaftikar. I'm on Gaftikar. Gaftikar is the third planet in the Gaftikar system, located in the Kalamith sector, which is part of the Bright Jewel oversector, in the Outer Rim Territories. Grid coordinates are P-5.

Those hard, unassailable facts were so comforting that she repeated them out loud four times, while staring fixedly at the ceiling of her cabin. Like all of the ceilings in the Mockingbird, Ro had painted it over with a glittering scene of stars. In this case, she was staring at an accurate rendering of the Ansionian summer night sky, when the Hunter stalked the shanh and a flock of kyren stretched along the heavens in a band so thick, it was impossible to recognize individual creatures. The painted stars on her ceiling glowed slightly, just like real stars and their soft light soothed away the last remnants of her uneasy sleep.

But it also meant she was wide-awake now and with a sigh, Ro swung her legs over the edge of the bed and mentally prepared herself to face another day. She wasn't nearly as rested as she would have liked, but taking stock of her condition she realized that the worst of her fatigue had been dealt with.

Ro began rummaging through the drawers under her bed, looking for suitable clothing. Artee would have, no doubt, already dealt with the things she'd worn….what? Earlier today? Yesterday?

She glanced at the chrono. One o'clock in the morning, Gaftikar time. Yesterday, then.

Anyway, she'd ruined another set of clothes. Eda was going to kill her.

Ro pulled out a long-sleeved, indigo shirt with orange borders and pants in dark russet. She fingered the material thoughtfully. This particular set of garments was made from heavy, energy-absorbing fibers that afforded some protection from blaster shots. They'd been an expensive addition to her wardrobe, but had proven useful on a number of undercover missions. And maybe, if the clothes could absorb some of the heat from a plasma bolt, they would also stand up better to fire. And even if they didn't, at least they were easier to clean than anything else she had.

Ro took the clothes, left her cabin and quickly ducked into the 'fresher.

She was back out again in fifteen minutes, her freshly scrubbed hair crackling and Artee waiting for her in the corridor. The little droid beeped at her unhappily. According to his calculations, she had only slept a minimum of 5.42 hours and would require at least another 2.58 to return to maximum functionality.

"I know, Artee," she soothed the little droid and crouched down before him, fondly trailing her fingers along the krayt dragon twining itself about his rotund body. "But I'm too restless to sleep, right now. I promise, once this case is over, I'll take a little holiday and sleep all day long. And you can get a real oil bath. That sound good?"

The astromech tootled sullenly, but conceded that her proposal did, indeed, sound acceptable.

"Good," she said and smiled at him affectionately. "Then I'd better get my stuff, because the sooner I get to work, the sooner we can leave."

Mollified, Artee let her pass to her workroom, while he disappeared down the corridor towards the hangar, chittering to himself about checking the new security measures.

Ro suppressed a giggle. Wren's breaking into the Mockingbird had really rattled Artee, who'd always considered their security top of the line.

Thoughts of the clone, however, caused her to sober almost instantly. Sighing, she rubbed the side of her face. What was she going to do about him? Come to that, what was she going to do about both of them.

Wren's display of bullying temper and their subsequent fight aside, it had not escaped Ro that Gaff had grown to like her. Like-like her and it was getting to the point where she could no longer simply ignore his growing feelings for her. Her usual strategy in such a case would be to smile brightly and dash off to the next star system, but she liked Gaff too much to do that to him. Besides, it might leave him with the hope that there could be something between them, maybe and the truth was, that could never happen.

Ro was...inhibited when it came to matters of love and physical attraction. It wasn't just her own bad experiences in the area that drove her to avoid any such attachments, either.

When she'd still been a Padawan at the Temple, Ro had fallen head over heels in love with a boy during a mission to Tanaab with her former Master. In the throes of adolescence, Ro had given in to her feelings and her empathic powers had overwhelmed Tanib, subsuming his own personality and desires in favor of hers. She'd glamoured him and could have damaged him permanently if not for the interference of her Master, Jedi Knight Sarika Adriav.

The Zeltron woman had understood better than anyone the dangers of a powerful empath in the grip of passion and recognizing Ro's penchant for strong emotions and a heart capable of deep love - so like her own species - Master Adriav had instilled within her Padawan a mind-block that was activated whenever Ro was either subjugated to or in the midst of feeling very strong, intense emotions; love and desire being the main points of concern.

The mind-block had kept her from ever doing to others what Ro had accidentally done to Tanib, but it had also kept her from exploring that side of her. Ferocious migraines and a body that froze up like a gallaze caught in a hunter's sight were not conducive to romance. So she had to make it clear to Gaff that he was wasting his time with her, but at the same time, she dreaded revealing her knowledge of his feelings. He'd be so embarrassed to find out that she knew, seeing as he had never made any overt attempts to gain her affections.

Ro activated the lights to her workroom and despite herself she sighed heavily and felt her shoulders slump. It was the start of a new day and already her mind was plagued by death and two men, equal in good looks and so completely different in personality. And to top it all off, she still felt bad about slapping Wren, though he had deserved it.

She went over to a large, wooden cabinet, one of the many that lined the workroom's walls. Pulling it open, her fingers danced over her shoe collection, before pulling out a specific pair. These boots were made of spun-plast orthotic, a pliable material that made the boots soft and thereby ideal for sneaking about, but durable enough to withstand a vibroblade. She quickly pulled them on, then went through a series of drawers, pulling out equipment and lining it up on her worktable.

"Why should I feel bad?" she asked herself while she gathered her things. "He was acting like a complete rancor." She fiddled with a small black-light glowrod, testing the batteries. "And afterwards?" she argued in a more subdued tone. "It was like he just shut down. Everyone was on edge, something clearly hit a nerve with him and all you could do was attack him for it."

The black-light worked and she put it with the rest of her things. "Attack him for it?" she asked out loud, her voice once more bossy and gruff. "He literally attacked me. I had to defend myself, right there, in the middle of a crime scene, because he can't control his temper."

She pulled out her gunnysack and started carefully packing her things into it. With a sigh and slumped shoulders, she admitted, "I should apologize."

Then her shoulders straightened and her chin jutted out stubbornly. "He should apologize. He started it."

With a groan, Ro slapped a hand to her forehead. "Whether he should apologize or I, just be glad no one's around to hear you arguing with yourself like a lunatic," she muttered. Honestly, these self-debates were getting her nowhere.

Drawing the gunnysack closed, Ro thought about maybe taking a page from the Jedi handbook. Perhaps it was time to set aside personal feelings and relationships and focus solely on the task at hand. She should forget about Gaff's feelings for her and Wren's rage and hurt and just concentrate on trying to find the bomber.

"Yeah," she said to the empty air. "And right after that, I'll go figure skating on Mustafar. Being an empath sucks plasma."

She swung the gunnysack over her shoulder, then let her hands fall to her hips and her lightsabers, where they were clipped to her broad utility belt. She drew comfort from their solid weight, letting the slight pulsing of the crystals inside soothe her. Taking a deep breath, Ro calmed her mind and let go of her turmoil. She would address these things, but not right now. The more knives you juggled, the more likely it became that you'd drop one and cut yourself. She had to do one task at a time and do it well.

Feeling better, Ro went to the cargo hold, where she pressed her hand flat against one of the many durasteel plates. Part of the plate lit up green and there was the faint whirring of hidden servomotors as parts of the cargo hold's walls slid aside to reveal numerous hidden compartments. And all of them were filled with a wide variety of exotic weapons.

Ro went over to one compartment, which held a number of delicate items, all of which appeared to be jewelry at first glance. They were, in fact, deadly weapons, one and all. There was a collection of glittering earrings that were disguised garrotes or comm devices. There were three beautifully decorated fans, whose ribs were metal and sharpened to a point where they could slice bone. Two sets of mounted hair combs had teeth that ended in sharp points. Ro's fingers skipped along the row of hair ornaments, passing over the combs, as well as a headdress, whose bejeweled frame hid slim knives. Carefully, Ro took down two thin hair needles.

Made of durasteel and gilded with gold, with a blue gem at the end of each, these were Zenji needles, used by the Mystril Shadow Guards. The ten-centimeter long needles were, like everything else in the compartment, beautiful and deadly. Ro had practiced many hours until she could throw the needles with enough accuracy to put out someone's eye.

Putting the needles between her teeth, Ro reached back and gathered her long hair into a knot at the back of her head. Working carefully, she stuck the needles into the mass of hair, until she was sure that both were secure. A few stray strands of hair fell into her face, but Ro merely pushed them behind her ears.

She went over to the next compartment, filled with a wide variety of knives and slender blades. She took down several slim, flat knives that she tucked into her boots, in a harness at the small of her back, and the last in a sheath strapped between her shoulder blades. She fastened two spring-loaded, wrist-mounted knife sheaths to her forearms. Ro shook herself a little, letting her clothes settle back over her slight frame, so that the folds could naturally conceal the outlines of her weapons.

Thus armed, she felt better. It always paid to have extra weapons when you were skulking about in the night.

Telling Artee that she was leaving, Ro walked down the unsealed loading ramp and, with a quick glance at the now empty and dark parade grounds, she slipped off of the base and into the darkness of the early morning.

Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (26 days after the first bombing and 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)

Ro wandered through Eyat in the early morning hours, revisiting all of the bomb sites in order. She probably could have asked Gaff to loan her a speeder, but decided to walk or use the public transports. She was still reluctant to intrude on the clones' privacy after their recent loss.

She re-gathered the physical evidence she'd lost during the fire the day before yesterday and spent time at each site, searching through the Force for a trace of the bomber. It was an exercise in futility. There was nothing. No bubbling resentment, no broiling malevolence and no jagged triumph. It was as if the bomber had never even been here.

As she trudged towards the site of the residential bombing, Ro began to review her options. Could the rat have smuggled his bomb in on a transport? Unlikely as all of the vehicles coming in and out of the storage facilities were scanned and searched, doubly so at the compound that had housed the Shenio Mining hangar. The scanners would have picked up that much detonite.

Could he have programmed a droid to take the bomb inside? A droid would leave no emotional trace for her to follow, but again, it was unlikely. Gaftikar was a very new colony and the only droids they employed were the most basic working types; mostly automated harvesters and mining drones. They would have stuck out in the city and the same went for any other type of droid. Besides, although droids had no feelings that she could detect with her empathy, Ro was not Force-blind to them in the way other Jedi were. Her extreme sensitivity to other beings emotions made droids stand out in her awareness like points of static. Master Altis, who had developed several interesting techniques when it came to machines, had taught Ro how to fine-tune that ability, so that when she focused her empathy on droids, she got a sensation as if she were biting on tinfoil and the more advanced the droid, the more intense the feeling. Master Altis had stipulated that this was caused by the increased electrical activity droids with a higher AI needed to run their various personality programs. Either way, it meant that to Ro, a droid would have rung a bell of recognition in her awareness.

So what did that leave her with?

She surveyed what was left over from the three residential houses with a sinking feeling. There were three white hills, approximately four meters high and ten wide, where the buildings had once stood. The extinguishing foam had not yet been removed, because the fire department was both too busy and too afraid to reignite the unknown incendiary substance. She'd get no physical evidence from here, but Ro was an eternal optimist, so she did try. Clambering over all three of the hills, she searched for something that might help her.

She did find some pieces of charred cloth and organic matter, but when she ran her finds through her portable mass spec, she discovered that they all belonged to former residents or firefighters. There was more litter strewn about in the surrounding streets, but most of that were used bandages and empty bacta containers. No one had had the time yet to clean up after the rescue effort.

Looking about her to see if she'd missed anything, Ro took up a position at the centre of the site. Closing her eyes, she delved into the Force.

Two days ago, Ro had caught her first hint of the rat just seconds before the bomb had gone off in this neighborhood. It hadn't been much, just a brief slash of jagged and sour glee and anticipation across her awareness, but it had been powerful enough to draw her here from halfway across the city. The intensity and twisted nature of the emotions convinced here that she had indeed felt the bomber. She hoped that, with feelings so intense, he might have left a residual trail in the Force.

He had to have been here when the bomb had gone off, but at the time, Ro had been too busy with the rescue attempts to try and pinpoint his location. A lost opportunity, but one she didn't regret. Now, if only she could pick up his trail from here…

There! Ro's breathing hitched for a moment in excitement, then she quickly calmed herself as the tenebrous feelings flickered and almost escaped her awareness. Carefully, mental fingers sorted through the layers of emotions that wrapped around this location. Ro likened the sensation to a painting that had been painted over many times and her empathy was the solution that slowly stripped away the individual layers. She had to be careful, or else she might destroy the very layer she sought.

Anticipation that made her skin feel too small for her body. Childish excitement. Pride….Hunger. Ro gasped and double over, her arms clutching at her belly. Hunger; a hunger so intense that it made her stomach cramp and saliva flood her mouth. It was a hunger that was both mental and physical and it burned through her in a flash so acute, that if it had been a corporeal event, it would have left her temporarily blind.

And then it was gone, like dust scattered on the wind. Ro tried to chase after the feeling, but found only coldness.

Coldness? she wondered, as she straightened and tried to compose her mind again. When had she ever felt coldness in the Force? Never. She'd never encountered an emotion that had created within her the sensation of coldness. Was it part of the bomber's trail or an effect of the disturbance in the Force created by the bomb? She didn't know. She only knew that she'd never come across that particular sensation in her other bombing cases.

Ro spent another half hour at the site, trying to pick up the bomber's scent again, but she finally had to admit defeat. It was gone.

"And you're stalling," she scolded herself. Then she sighed. "Yeah, I am. But can I blame me?"

She hefted her gunnysack again and walked through the city towards Drezd'any Street; the one place she really didn't want to go to.

As she walked, Ro noticed not for the first time how eerie Eyat felt at the moment. Other than the numerous patrols of police and soldiers – and she noticed that the cops currently outnumbered the troopers – there was absolutely no one about. The entire city felt like a tree-burrower hiding from a katarn, with every citizen holding his or her breath in anticipation of being eaten. It made her skin crawl and elicited a feeling of being short of breath.

When she finally reached the outer edges of the destruction zone that had once been a street in the shopping district, Ro had to stop and catch her breath, flinching a little as a barrage of intense, agonizing emotions came at her.

The Force nearly howled with all of the pain, terror, fear, horror and disbelief. A slight pulsing in her temples reminded Ro of the mind-block that guarded her from being overwhelmed by this onslaught. Going in there would probably give her a ferocious headache, but it was the freshest site and, unlike the residential site, it wasn't buried beneath tons of extinguisher foam. She might actually find something here, though Commissioner Gor'Dan and his people had already combed the area for physical evidence. Still, the Force might lead her to something they had missed.

Ro ducked beneath the holographic cordon, her boots swirling up clouds of earth and freshly settled ash. She pulled out a scanner from her gunnysack, taking air samples just to be sure, but the scanner assured her that, whatever had made the smoke from the fires so damaging, had long since dissipated into the air.

That was good to know. Putting the scanner back into her gunnysack, Ro decided that she would work her way from the point of origin outwards, in a spiral pattern. That would help her cover the most ground.

She made her way towards where the tapcaf used to be, working hard to ignore the maelstrom of emotions battering against her shields. So many people had died here. An estimated forty-eight had been in Drezd'any Street at the time of the explosion, though it was difficult to get exact numbers. Cebz had made a public appeal to report all missing persons, but so far, they were still waiting on a final tally. But eighteen people had died of severe injuries and shock, either at the hospitals or on their way there, including the Marit Ro had helped work on. That left the newest tally at a confirmed fifty-one dead, though the suspected number of dead ran to somewhere in the sixties. Such a tragedy wouldn't just go away and the Force could have a long memory.

When she reached the crater that was all that was left of the tapcaf, Ro pulled out her glowrod and shone the light about her. Dawn was just breaking and the shadows within the crater were still deep enough for her to need the extra illumination.

The police had done good work. The crater had been segregated into neat grids, each grid numbered and Ro could see several holo tags of varying color where they'd found some physical evidence. By now it had all been bagged and tagged and was no doubt being analyzed by Gaftikar's ERT's – Evidence Response Team. Ro nevertheless swept the area again, stepping carefully into each grid, following the small path that had been cleared. She found a few metallic pieces, but closer examination told her that they'd been part of the tapcaf's furniture or kitchen supplies. Like the ERTs, she passed them by.

When she reached what was left of the kitchen – the explosion's point of origin – Ro hunkered down in a grid empty of holotags, switched off her glowrod and closed her eyes.

Breathing steadily, Ro dared to open her shields just a crack. It was like trying to keep a bunker door only halfway closed during a tornado. The emotional turmoil about her ripped and tore at the shields like gale force winds, trying to pry them open further. Ro was barely aware of the sweat beginning to trickle down her face as she battled the emotions trying to batter her, while at the same time attempting to pick up something useful.

She got snatches of wary contentment and bemused resignation, which she thought might have belonged to the tapcaf owner. They certainly felt anchored to this place. But overlaying those feelings was pain, surprise, incredulity, horror; a thousand negative emotions from dozens of people of two species.

And then her mental probing stumbled across….hunger.

The sensation was so surprising it nearly made her fall over. Ro braced one hand against the debris and dirt littered ground, steadying herself physically as her awareness shot after that stray sensation. There was no mistaking that feeling, not after her so recent encounter with it at the residential block. She'd picked up her rat's trail again.

Opening herself further to the Force, Ro steadfastly ignored all other sensations and put her mental nose to the wind, sniffing after that elusive scent.

And she found the trail. There was pride and glee and triumph and twining through it all was that ever-present, all consuming hunger. The emotions were twisted almost beyond recognition, like an abstract painting of melted circles and crooked triangles. They were a mockery of what another Human might feel and Ro, touching those strands of emotions, was sure now that it was a Human they were dealing with. All forensic reasoning aside, there was that distinctive Human feel to the pattern, something Ro associated with soft flesh and a general sense of self-importance.

And there was something else to those emotions, something she couldn't immediately put her finger on. Furrowing her brow in thought, Ro's eyes shifted from side to side beneath her lids as she tried to analyze what the Force was telling her.

These emotions were so intense…so powerful…so fresh. Far too fresh to be a day old. They felt immediate….and very close.

Ro's teal eyes flew open and she froze where she was, hunkered down on her haunches in the middle of a bomb crater.

The bomber was here with her, right now. And he was no more than a few meters away from her.