[Excerpt from Republic High Command Directive 21.108-Besh. Classified.]

The vulnerabilities and limitations of Republic Intelligence assets were demonstrated with painful regularity during the Jedi Civil War. Approximately eighty percent of agents deployed behind enemy lines were discovered and neutralized, most often by enemy Force-users. The survival rate for Jedi who attempted infiltration was only slightly higher.

I cannot possibly be too emphatic: it will not be enough merely to bring the full strength of Republic Intelligence to bear against the Sith. The conditions of this war will be unlike any we have seen, and the survival of our way of life will depend on our ability to implement new strategies, technologies, and tactics at every level of operation.


Bevel stood with his back pressed to a duracrete wall in the maintenance sublevel of Telthek Nest, pausing to listen to the squad of Gran mercenaries loitering just around the corner. Nearby, one of the numerous pipes snaking across the ceiling had recently sprung a generous leak of something that might or might not have been water; its continued dribbling echoed through the halls. The foul, black-tinted liquid was centimeters deep in this part of the sublevel, giving off an acidic stench that stung Bevel's nostrils. Barely enough to see by, the wall-mounted glowstrips were a sickly brown, as though coated over with must.

Bevel took only a few seconds to listen with his ears and with the Force. The four mercenaries were alert, but weary and agitated as they sloshed about, debating which corridor to check next. They were eager to finish their task and return to the surface. Already they were too close to success; twelve junctions back lay the blasted corpse of Lannik Mai's partner. Though he hoped that Giran Faselli was having better luck with the other spies topside, Bevel would be humiliated if he himself emerged from the sublevel emptyhanded.

Not that he cared what his partner or even Lady Hoctu thought of him; he just had his pride to consider.

Entering the junction, he extended his lightsaber hilt and thumbed the activation plate as he darted behind the closest of the mercenaries. Burned free at the waist, the Gran's top half toppled to the floor with a tremendous splash. His comrades spun, weapons at the ready, and scarlet reflections shattered over the panicking water as Bevel's lightsaber caught the blaster bolts coming his way. Several blinked past his shoulder, tearing into the wall and peppering his back with duracrete pebbles.

As he continued his deflection, Bevel strafed toward a second Gran who, as stupid as he was brave, traded his blaster for a vibrodagger and lunged. The Sith cut him down without breaking stride, then felled one of the others with a borrowed laser bolt.

Thinking of the newly rearranged odds, the last mercenary turned and ran down one of the connecting halls, his boots making huge splashes as he went. Extinguishing his saber, Bevel drew his blaster pistol and fired. The lone bolt went through the upper part of the Gran's head with a sizzling thump, dropping him flat in the filthy water. By the laser's eyeblink-glow, Bevel fancied he caught a glimpse of the alien's central eyestalk in midair, still connected to a glob of cranial tissue.

Black waves lapped about Bevel's ankles and greedily slopped into the hem of his cloak as he holstered the pistol. Stretching out with his feelings, it took him only a brief moment to recover the Force-trail of his quarry. He set off through the labyrinth and the infant flood thinned, then vanished as he left it behind. No longer did he step quietly; he trusted his instincts and they told him wordlessly, unequivocally, that he was no longer in any danger—and that his time was running out.

Back on the main level, the chaos about the docking bays had been fierce, with protracted firefights between Gran mercenaries and the various criminals whose starships were being quarantined. Evidently Lannik Mai and his accomplice had fled into the sublevel in an effort to avoid and perhaps circumvent the killing zone. Whether some Gran had spotted and chased them or just been down there on patrol was unknown to Bevel, but in any case he'd been delayed by several run-ins with them.

Rounding a bend, he came into a corridor that was plunged in complete darkness by inoperable glowstrips—and halfway through that band of shadow, crumpled up against the wall like a pile of refuse, was Lannik Mai.

Bevel drew near and stooped beside the body, studying it with clinical efficiency. Lannik had been shot twice—once in the left thigh and then on the opposite leg, close to the ankle—but had still managed to run this far. The wounds were not lethal, but Bevel could sense the man's pain leaking out of him like steam from a burned-out swoop engine.

And yet, Bevel observed, Lannik Mai was dying. The Human's skin was as cold as the duracrete walls, his pulse a quickly fading murmur. As Bevel frowned at the languishing man, his eye was caught by a small, nondescript article on the floor nearby. A quick inspection identified it as an expended hypo-syringe—and there was no need to speculate as to what its cartridge had contained or what Lannik Mai had done with it.

Suddenly the man moved—nothing more than a twitch, as if he was fighting off a settling sleep. "Good chase," he said, though his rasping tone was anything but congratulatory. "Bad luck for you this time, though. You lose…"

"I haven't lost yet."

"There's nothing on me, no datapad. Nothing in the ship. And I'm on my way out. Not telling you anything."

The situation was far less than ideal. There was no time for anything resembling a proper interrogation. Bevel was tempted to curse the Gran mercenaries, not to mention his partner, for slowing him down. Saving Lannik Mai's life was not an option, either. Whatever he had poisoned himself with was acting too quickly, and if the Sith knew how to use the Force to heal others and not just themselves, they had neglected to teach that to Bevel on Thule.

His masters had not been negligent in everything, however. There was a way to salvage some of the information this spy held before it was lost forever.

"You don't have to tell me anything." Gathering the Force to himself, Bevel rose like a black pillar; the darkness of the hallway seemed to concentrate itself in his form. He gazed down on Lannik Mai—first at him, then into him. The Human's surface thoughts were fractured by the pain of his wounds, and in those thoughts Bevel saw faces—but he knew immediately that they were not of anyone useful to him. There was a Human woman, then a child, then a group of them in a loud, gregarious party of some kind… Memories. Lannik Mai's childhood, or perhaps a family that this mission had taken him away from. Perhaps these loved ones were waiting for him on some quiet, prosaic coreward world, far within the bounds of high galactic civilization and safely insulated—for now—from the endless wars that defined the galactic fringe.

The Human spoke again, his voice hoarser than before and wavering like jelly. Was he already aware of Bevel's mind reaching into his? Sometimes they were. "Stop… Leave, leave me alone… Just let me go."

For the briefest of moments Bevel hesitated as, in what most Sith would regard as a contemptible infraction, he realized that he pitied his adversary. Like him, Bevel was far from home, and it was not hard to imagine meeting a similar end himself: hunted down in one of the cesspits of the galaxy, just as he had hunted so many others. And if Bevel happened to have the chance in his last moments of consciousness, he supposed that he, too, might spend them in trying to recall whatever good and warmth he had once enjoyed. Enemy though he was, Lannik Mai's life would end soon enough; to rob him of this paltry and fleeting consolation struck Bevel as evil. Though there were very few acts of which he was incapable—perhaps none at all—he did not like to think of himself as a cruel man.

But he had a mission to complete.

As he had been trained to do, Bevel called up the anger from within his heart. Donning it as he might snugly pull on a pair of gloves, he let the power of the Force cover his insignificant misgivings and return him to his purpose. He plunged into the spy's thoughts, rending open and grasping, seizing and probing, searching for whatever was useful with a speed that just fell short of recklessness. All the while Lannik Mai twitched, jerked, writhed about in the dark; though soon too weak to scream, his efforts somehow left a ring in Bevel's ears, and it came as a relief when the Force snatched the doomed soul away at last.