BLOW US ALL AWAY

Years ago Kallus was sure Swain would blow him away with her talents. As for how that panned out ... well, let's just say she's getting ready to blow him away in an entirely different fashion.

It was perfect. Kallus leaned over the little flimsi book, checking again to make sure it had all its pages. He didn't need to - it was exactly as the auction house had described. Near-perfect condition, only a little wear around the edges but that was expected for any flimsi book. Some of that had also come from him flipping through it to re-familiarize himself with the story. He didn't want to send Swain the wrong message by accident. But it, like the book itself, was everything he wanted and more. Well worth every credit he'd spent.

Now all that was left was to wrap it and give it to Swain for her graduation. Or it would be after he finished this. Kallus tapped his one ink pen against the desk, the title page of the book staring back at him as he contemplated what to write.

Something canned - Congratulations, Reach for the stars - would diminish the significance of the gift. A quote or verse, when he was already speaking through the story, risked coming off impersonal. He didn't make jokes. And he would never admit it aloud, but he lacked the courage to write three certain words.

Ugh. Normally this was when he would ask Yularen for advice but he had a feeling even his mentor couldn't help him here. He'd never gone to such lengths with Kallus and the last thing he wanted was for Yularen to think he'd gone soft. Defeated Kallus simply signed his name with space for the message above. He could come up with something later.

And not a moment too soon. Swain burst through his office doors with a full ten minutes left on her break, wild-eyed.

"You're early." He threw the book into his desk drawer and closed it before she could see.

"Kallus," she whispered. "I'm in so much trouble."

"What's wrong?" Had the rebels somehow gotten to her? Was he finally going to get the chance to kill Cogon? Could she - he banished the possibility from his mind. There was no way she was in that kind of trouble. Swain was far too smart for that!

(And on the off chance she was … Cogon had better start running.)

"I failed Culture."

Kallus blinked. If anything the thought of his brilliant, perfectionist daughter failing a bird class was more shocking than the possibility of pregnancy. "How did that happen? You have top honors."

"It was the dance portion," Swain paced the floor. "One of the lessons was the day of my mom's funeral. I turned in the obituary as proof so I thought it was excused but…"

Oh this was not good. Kallus could still recall his own dance lessons under the tutelage of an instructor who had heard every excuse in the galaxy and summarily, did not believe in excused absences.

"I can make it up." She produced a datapad and held it out to him. "All I need is your signature saying I can do a basic waltz and they'll pass me. I have music and Cogon's on his way up to be my partner. It'll take two minutes."

Kallus had stopped listening after Cogon. "That won't be necessary," he said and grabbed his intercom. "Attention base munitions officer, this is Agent Kallus. No need to report to my office. I repeat, base munitions officer needs not report to my office."

Swain's forehead wrinkled in confusion. She'd worked with him for long enough to know there were no freebies where he was concerned. "Have you seen me dance?"

"I haven't," he stood and pushed his chair into his desk to make room. "I simply don't see why we need to trouble the munitions department when I can be your partner."

"You would do that?" She perked up.

"It would be my pleasure." He extended a gloved hand to her. "You say you have music?"

She nodded and keyed up her comlink unit to play before getting into position, one hand on his shoulder,the other holding his. "Ready?"

He spun her around the floor as the singer crooned about trees of green and red roses too. They weren't quite touching, not with two gloves between them, but it was closest they had ever gotten

"Remember to let me lead," he reminded her. "I won't walk you into anything."

"Right," she relaxed a little. "The instructor used to say that all the time."

"Pay attention to the cues from me and you have all the information you need. So when I lift your hand -." She turned under his arm. "Excellent. I'd sign you off just for that."

The tiny squeeze of her hand told him she didn't want that to happen just yet and he was more than happy to oblige. Kallus pulled her in for another turn and his eyes drifted to the drawer holding the book. She would love it, he was sure. He just hoped she got his message.

You make me so proud and I'd like to do this with you again on your wedding day.

But mostly I love you, and you're mine.

He shook his head, knowing he needn't worry. Like he said before, his daughter was brilliant. Of course she would figure it out.

...

Kallus didn't sleep all night.

If anyone had asked he'd have blamed his insomnia on Philip. Everyone could understand a baby waking his father in the middle of the night. His son, however, had slept like a rock and the real reason he couldn't drift off was just down the hall, sharing Hutch and Hero's old room with her husband.

When it was finally a socially acceptable hour to be out of bed Kallus dragged himself to the kitchen and brewed up a pot of caf, extra strong. He didn't bother with food, knowing he wouldn't eat it, but a few sips of his lifeblood had him feeling almost human again.

Caffeine, what would I do without you? He sank into his chair at the kitchen table and nursed his cup. Sierra usually got up about an hour from now and immediately went to check on Philip, but if he timed it right he could take the first feeding and let her sleep a little longer.

He was debating whether to turn off his wife's alarm or just tell her she could go back to bed when it went off, when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor and Swain walked in.

She hadn't slept either, if the dark circles under her eyes were anything to go off, and she got two steps into the galley before she spotted him and froze.

Be casual, Alex. He nodded over his caf. "Good morning."

"Morning," Swain said carefully. Obviously she hadn't expected anyone else to be up.

He gestured to the kitchen. "Help yourself to anything. We have eggs, cereal …"

"I was actually just going to make caf, but..." her eyes went to the brewed pot.

"You're more than welcome to it. Mugs are right above the caf maker."

Swain took one and poured herself a cup, and Kallus relaxed. He could manage this; it was just like when they would get caf from the officers' mess.

"Here." He pulled out the chair opposite him.

Swain stopped on her way to the common room and silently took the seat. They didn't talk, instead opting to drink their caf in silence.

Two cups in Kallus broke it. "I'd like to speak with you this morning."

"Would you?" She barely bothered to mask the sarcasm in her voice.

"You must know something about this assault even if you don't know what it is. If we can make that connection we'll be able to determine who wants you dead, and the easiest way to make it is to interview you."

He braced for resistance but Swain just nodded. "Okay," she said and squared herself up at the table. "What would you like to know?"

"Wouldn't you like to have breakfast first?" She hadn't eaten anything since she was attacked last night; she had to be hungry, and besides she was even thinner than the day he met her, all bones and Kallus badgering her about eating protein bars. He swallowed hard when he realized how Swain must have gotten so skinny.

"Please, ask away. The sooner we get to the bottom of this the sooner Brent and I can go home."

And the sooner I don't have to live with you.

"Very well." He grabbed a pad of flimsi and stylus to take notes. "Let's begin with something simple: do you have any enemies?"

Swain raised an eyebrow. "When I'm not moving stolen goods or conspiring to move stolen goods, I'm a cop. It's safe to say I have a lot of enemies."

"What about outside of your job? Any neighborhood disputes, fallings out with friends, disgruntled coworkers?"

"No, nothing. We keep to ourselves for the most part and the few friends we do have we're on good terms with."

He could believe that; Swain and Cogon had always been very well liked. "Then let's switch focus. Have you worked on any cases involving the rich and powerful?"

Again she shook her head. "No one I've worked with as Selkie knows my real identity so we can cross them off the list. The detective sergeant job is only part time and it's mostly desk work, so I can keep an eye on things for Dalla. The museum robbery's the biggest case I've come across and we both know that's a dead end."

"I have to agree. Setting aside Dalla's obvious care for you, you're more valuable to her alive than dead."

"I agree." Swain glared. "But I've learned not to put much faith in how much people care for you."

Kallus hid a wince inside his caf cup. "There must be something."

"Believe me I would tell you if there was, but my life has been as boring as it can get when you're Selkie. I don't know of any specific person who would want me dead."

That couldn't be right. Whatever the key to this was, it was within Swain herself and she was just too stubborn to admit it. Kallus took a deep breath. "Beings don't resort to murder for no reason."

"Want to run that one past Aresko and Grint?"

He nearly dropped his caf mug. He'd never told her about this and he was sure she didn't have the proper clearances at the time. "How do you know about Aresko and Grint?"

"Because I saw their headless bodies taken out the back of the Complex."

"You...what?"

"What did you expect?" She scoffed. "You told me to take the quickest route out and go straight home. I was in the alley when the troopers wheeled them to the morgue."

Her speech on Thrad came back to him like a boomerang: After everything I saw happen on Lothal when Tarkin arrived, there was hardly any choice. He'd spent years wondering what she'd seen that could have pushed her over the edge. This...this made sense. Kallus still remembered the harrowing few seconds after he left Tarkin's office, his only thought that he needed to get Swain out of the Complex immediately. He hadn't considered that she might come face to face with Tarkin's victims.

"They might have bungled some things, but they didn't deserve to die." Swain's caf mug plunked against the table as she put it down. "How could you go on serving the Empire after watching men beheaded for no reason?"

"You think Tarkin wouldn't have extended that noose to me if I'd wavered?" He demanded. "He'd have killed me without a second's hesitation but first, he would have killed you! Everything I did during his tenure, I did to keep you safe."

"Right, because you have such a great record of caring about my safety."

Kallus exhaled through gritted teeth, willing himself to relax. He was already skating on thin ice; he couldn't afford to take argument bait. "Tarkin was an odious man and believe me, there were no tears shed when I learned he'd perished on the Death Star. I'd been with the rebellion for a couple of years at that point."

Swain flinched. "Say that again?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Tarkin was an odious man, no tears -."

"Not that part. How long were you with the rebellion?"

"Officially, one year." He replied. "Though I'd been working with them as Fulcrum for eighteen months before, since my encounter on the ice moon."

Swain did the mental math. "Which means the ice moon was…around salt and light."

"Near the end of the first month, yes."

The betrayal deepened in her eyes and Kallus realized too late what he'd said.

"The first month?" She repeated. "That was while I was with Beck."

Kallus prayed for a black hole to swallow him where he stood. "It was."

"You'd defected way back then." The cup rattled in her hands and she released it. "I didn't think you left until later but…" Her mouth opened in a pathetic O. "You were a rebel, and you never thought to rescue us?"

Black hole, lightning strike, where are you? "I had to focus on the most important -."

"I was being tortured!" She shrieked. "In what galaxy is that not important?"

"I thought you were dead! The rebels were stretched thin as it was; I couldn't risk them losing people and resources for nothing."

"If you'd opened the reports you would have known I wasn't dead. Didn't you think that maybe you should check before you wrote me off for good?"

For the first time ever Kallus wished he had opened that report.

"You saved the pilots from Skystrike Academy and you didn't even know them! I was your trainee and you left me at the mercy of kriffing Beck! Do you have any idea what she did to me?"

Something, an excuse or an apology maybe, bubbled on his lips but he forgot everything he was going to say when Swain turned her back to him and lifted her shirt. The bit of ink he'd glimpsed the night before was only the top of a full-back tattoo, beautifully rendered and finely detailed, of a female figure encapsulated in a seal's body. A selkie, he realized, surrounded by a seaweed-filled background. Sabine could spend hours analyzing it and although Kallus wasn't much for tattoos, even he was taken aback by this one. "It's beautiful."

Swain didn't budge. "Look closer."

He already knew what she meant, but he'd temporarily forgotten about it in favor of the tattoo. Kallus obeyed her directive and found, so carefully placed they almost looked like shading for the seaweed, the laser cutter scars.

"Swain -."

"That's just the beginning of it." She spun around, shirt falling back into place. Before it fell all the way to its rightful position Kallus caught a glimpse of another small scar on her abdomen. Stars above, where hadn't Beck cut her? "I could go on and tell you about how she drugged me, and beat me, and electrocuted me, and made Brent watch. How she mutilated Brent's leg and made me watch. Even that wasn't enough for her." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Skystrike was an acceptable risk, and so was Lothal, but apparently this wasn't."

"My defection was public during Lothal, and helping pilots escape a flight academy is completely different from breaking into Interrogation and rescuing two prisoners." He argued. "You were my trainee! If you just so happened to escape the same day I showed up to the facility my loyalty would be called into question. The Empire would scrutinize every detail of my life and it wouldn't be long until I was exposed as Fulcrum. Phoenix group, the rebellion itself would have been annihilated! I wanted to look for you but it was just too big a risk."

"Really? Because it wasn't that way for Colonel Yularen."

Kallus stopped breathing.

"What did you say?"

The sentence was just as much of a sucker punch the second time. "Colonel Yularen is the one who rescued us."

"Yularen? ISB Colonel Yularen?" He coughed.

"He was a friend of Dalla's. They worked together from the very beginning."

The room spun around Kallus. Yularen had rescued Swain. And if she was right about his working with Dalla, then he'd been a double agent far longer than Kallus had.

He sat down hard. Double agent Yularen. And just when he thought he'd heard it all.

Swain stared him down.

"If the director of ISB could take the risk, don't tell me you couldn't," she spat and stormed out of the galley.

Kallus wanted to chase her. He wanted to volley back something along the lines of not all of us have the power Yularen had, or even more importantly this is not getting us any closer to knowing who wants you dead!

But all that came out of his mouth was "Colonel Yularen?"

He heard Swain's sound of disgust all the way down the hall.

Not a second later, Philip started demanding to be fed.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a special chapter starring Double Agent Yularen!