Quinlan leaned against the doorframe of the large shuttle and eyed the white-furred Bothan, who was clasping and unclasping his hands. "You can leave the planet within the hour?"

The Bothan nodded fervently. "I must leave within the hour."

Quinlan eyed him for a long moment. The Bothan looked scared stiff, but in the Force he was icily calm and distant. "You know what, I'll bet you're an intelligence agent."

Predictably, the alien dropped his nervous act and whipped out a pistol.

Quinlan leaped forward and knocked it out of his hand. "Hey, I'm not after you."

The alien stood, slowly releasing a half-drawn knife with his free hand. "Then what do you want?"

"I want you to take someone with you to Bothawui. A girl asked you for passage several days ago."

"Yes," said the Bothan, folding his arms. "She seemed frantic, but I haven't seen her since."

Quinlan felt nothing dishonest from him. Of course, honesty was a trait demanded of and trained into all Bothan agents – so much so that they had a galaxy-wide reputation for truthfulness – but it never hurt to check.

"Maybe because you charged her an exorbitant price?"

The Bothan looked perplexed. "Two thousand credits is hardly exorbitant. I am, after all, risking my life by bringing her along."

"I know the feeling," Quinlan admitted. "You're afraid she might be an enemy agent, planted on your ship to take you out. Well . . . fair enough, I guess. Here's two thousand."

The Bothan examined the credit chips carefully, even slipping them into a small device and scanning them before nodding his acceptance. "You seem particularly interested in getting this girl off Nar Shaddaa. Why?"

"She somehow managed to survive here for three weeks," Quinlan said, glancing outside to where Wrecker stood with the girl. The other commandos were a short distance off, having moved to keep watch on the landing platform. "Guess she was trying to get somewhere else, but her pilot dumped her here when his ship was damaged. She's been attacked several times and had to shoot a guy in self-defense last week."

"And you are helping her. You're a newcomer to this planet, aren't you?"

"Yep, and so are you. Why do you want to leave so fast, anyway?"

"I have time-sensitive information to deliver."

"Yeah?" Quinlan folded his arms. "Is it Republic or Separatist?"

The agent chuckled. "Bothawui is scarcely concerned with the galactic war. We collect information for thousands of planets."

"Just making conversation. I've worked with Bothans before."

"Ah . . . I suspect you have been an intelligence agent yourself, Kiffar."

Quinlan bowed.

"I see. I wondered how you knew I was pretending."

"Work on the acting a little," Quinlan suggested flippantly. "Your nervousness was obviously fake. Now – can I trust you to get her safely to Bothawui?"

The Bothan looked mildly perturbed at Quinlan's half-serious criticism. "I – yes, I will bring her to safety. But I was not acting when I said I had to leave swiftly."

"Okay. I'll get her onboard. Good luck."

"I wish you the same." They exchanged bows, and the Bothan went into the cockpit.

Ignoring the boarding ramp, Quinlan jumped from the shuttle and landed next to Wrecker. "Everything's settled," he told the girl. "He'll take you, but you'll have to get onboard now."

She met his gaze, her dark, red-rimmed eyes so intent that he shifted back unconsciously. "I don't know how to thank you," she said in a low, fervent voice. "These last three weeks have been a nightmare. If it weren't for you and your friends, I might not have lived much longer. How can I possibly repay you?"

Quinlan smiled briefly. "Maybe you'll do the same for someone else one day."

"I will. I promise." She hesitated, then reached into one pocket and withdrew a small pendant that dangled from a simple chain. "I don't know if this will be any use to you, but it's something the owner of the cantina gave it to me. I was to show it to anyone who tried to approach me in the streets."

When Quinlan accepted the pendant, the girl nodded and turned to Wrecker, jumping a bit when she saw that the other three clones had moved quietly up behind him. "Thank you, all of you."

Crosshair and Tech inclined their heads, and Hunter said, "Glad to have helped."

Wrecker, the only commando not wearing his helmet, gave her a friendly smile and patted her on the shoulder. "Good luck!"

"You'd better get going," Quinlan said, tilting his head toward the ship.

She hesitated, then gave his hand a quick, grateful squeeze before hurrying up the boarding ramp and disappearing inside.

The doors closed and the engines started immediately. Then the ship took off and turned, drifting out above the lanes of air traffic, and they caught a final glimpse of the girl, who had one hand pressed against the cockpit window as she smiled down at them.

The ship flew out of sight, and Wrecker cleared his throat. "Kind of funny, seeing one of the people we helped."

Hunter pulled off his helmet to rub tiredly at his head. "Yeah, it is."

Crosshair glanced at Wrecker. "The Arconan didn't count?"

"Technically, no," replied Tech, leaning forward to peer at the pendant that hung from Quinlan's hand. "He was an informant, and therefore not a civilian, as such; and our helping him was inside mission parameters."

Quinlan raised an eyebrow at his companions. "What are you guys talking about?"

Hunter, who had turned to lead the way back to the Havoc Marauder, didn't seem to hear him.

"Well, see . . ." Wrecker was clomping along next to Quinlan, who had to walk fast to keep up. "We're always being sent to help people, but we never see 'em. We just take out the enemy and then leave."

"That's our job," Crosshair commented from up ahead. "You just said it yourself – we're sent to help people. Not to make friends with them."

"That is true," Tech said. "But Wrecker's right. It is nice to know whom we're helping."

Hunter didn't say anything, though that was probably less from a lack of opinion and more because he was moving on autopilot.

They reached the narrow walkway, and Quinlan gestured for Wrecker to move ahead of him, just in case the big clone lost his balance. "Hey, Tech, could you check the landing pad for any unexpected visitors?"

Tech obeyed immediately, looking at his datapad instead of where he was walking, and Quinlan almost decided to rescind the order. "Uh . . . Tech? We're on a narrow walkway over hundreds of meters of empty space . . ."

Crosshair glanced over one shoulder, but apparently decided that Tech knew what he was doing.

Tech paused mid-step to look back at Quinlan. "Wait, did you say something?"

"Nope," said Quinlan. "I'm just talking to myself. Because it's fun."

Wrecker snorted.

After blinking in confusion, Tech finally went back to walking. "Well, at any rate, the platform is clear."

Hunter reached the platform and headed straight for the ship, and Tech pressed a button on his vambrace, putting away his datapad as the boarding ramp extended.

Quinlan entered the ship last, casting a quick look at the Prince's warehouse, which loomed across from them, silent and still in the faint glow of the city lights.

"Seal the doors," Hunter ordered. "We'll keep a guard tonight."

"Activating security measures," called Tech from the cockpit. "And, if we are going by standard time, there are only a few hours left to the night."

"I'll stay on guard," offered Wrecker. "I'd've had the next shift anyway."

"Okay," said Hunter, then turned to Quinlan. "What time should we resume our mission?"

Leaning back against the wall, Quinlan pretended to mull this over. "Uhh – when at least half of you are at least half-alive."

The sergeant gave him a dry look. "Vos . . ."

Quinlan smirked. "Okay. Not for the next eight hours at least. There's no rush, and I want to review everything we know and put together a plan of attack. I'll switch out with Wrecker in a couple hours."

Wrecker entered the lower deck of the Marauder and glanced around. There wasn't a whole lot he could keep quietly occupied with on the upper deck, apart from reading, but reading always put him to sleep at night. Down here, though, he had a few projects.

"Metalworking's too loud," he mumbled, rummaging through the contents of the storage cupboard. "Guess I could work that stupid three-dimensional puzzle Tech keeps nagging me about – or . . ." He stared at a large box, which was full of bits and pieces of various repurposed machines and droids. "Might as well sort through this junk."

He hoisted the box to the ground, sat down, and began removing things and setting them in various piles. He'd saved all this stuff for specific purposes, he was sure of it; he just couldn't remember what everything was for. He picked up the tactical droid's head, which he definitely remembered saving so he could melt it down and make a weapon out of it – to use against droids. He grinned and set that piece in a 'use soon' pile.

He glanced up from his work every once in a while to check the sensor station across from him, but nothing was going on. Just as well. Wrecker loved action, but the past couple days had been non-stop.

Light footsteps sounded on the ladder, and Quinlan entered the room quietly. "Hey, Wrecker. Anything going on?"

"Nope." Wrecker stared at a pistol with a long crack in one side. "What could I use this for?"

The Jedi sat down across from him in a cross-legged position. "You can't fix it?"

"This thing? Hunter jammed it into a droid's speeder engine, and –" Wrecker twisted it slightly. The blaster fell in two pieces.

"Okay, never mind," said Quinlan with a raised eyebrow. "Did it work?"

"Yeah, blew the speeder and the droid to bits." Wrecker held up the tactical droid's head and shook it. "See?"

"You kept the head?" The Jedi grinned suddenly. "What for?"

"I'm gonna make a knife out of it and use it to slice droids," said Wrecker.

Quinlan rubbed his chin. "You know what, I'll bet you could hang it on the wall like a hunting trophy. . ."

"A trophy?" Wrecker stared at him in glee. "Hey, why didn't I think of that? Quick – where should I put it?"

"You want to put it up now?"

"Yeah, before Hunter wakes up." Wrecker got up, forgetting about the metal pieces in his lap. They slid to the ground with a clatter. "Oops."

Quinlan cringed at the noise, then cast a cautious look at the ceiling. "I don't think anyone woke up . . ."

They both listened for a moment, but when the silence started to ring in his ears, Wrecker headed for the ladder. "Nope, we're good."

He climbed up and hurried to the galley, the Jedi close on his heels. "We've really gotta be quiet up here," he whispered.

"Right," Quinlan whispered back. "So, you thinking above the shelves or what?"

"Let's put it above the heating unit. That way, Hunter'll see it first thing." Wrecker tried to balance the head, but it slid off twice. "I'll need some wire or something."

"Hang on." The Jedi hurried back down the ladder, reappearing in a few moments with a long piece. "Let's fasten the head to the shelf above the unit."

"Good." Wrecker quickly wound the wire around the neck and the metal bars of the shelf. "Wait, wait – hey, Quinlan, I just had an idea. Did you see where Tech put that little power unit?"

"Which one? He's got, like, a hundred of . . . Wait, are you –?"

"Yep." Wrecker rummaged around in the locker. "Found it!"

"Sh!" warned the Jedi, holding up a hand. "I just heard something."

Wrecker froze, the power unit in one hand and a cord in the other. "Oh, boy. Bet Hunter heard us."

The barracks door slid open. Wrecker shared a panicked look with the Jedi, but then Tech wandered into the room. He'd obviously been fast asleep – he wasn't wearing his goggles, there was a blanket mark on one side of his face, and his hair was sticking up in odd directions. He stopped and stared blankly at them.

Wrecker waved. "Sorry we woke you."

"I had an idea," Tech said vaguely. "Hm . . . because of that design . . ." He meandered erratically through the galley and into the cockpit.

Quinlan shot a questioning look at Wrecker, who shrugged and went back to wiring the droid head. "He does that sometimes," he explained.

"Okay, right," said the Jedi uncertainly.

Tech re-entered the room, murmuring to himself. "I expect the delicate calibrations involved in such a project will require high-quality materials, but obtaining them is not completely insurmountable . . ." He stopped talking as he walked right into a concerned-looking Quinlan. Without seeming to notice, Tech adjusted his course and veered back towards the bunkroom, still talking. "Perhaps a high-grade trilanthium, or even –"

The barracks door slid shut behind him.

"Wrecker?" Quinlan scratched his jaw. "Was he even awake?"

"Uhh . . ." Wrecker thought for a moment. "Probably not. Okay, plug it in."

"Got it." The Jedi plugged the cord into the power unit, and the droid's eyes lit up in a flickering red.

"Run," it said in a flat, alarmed voice. "Hurry."

Quinlan yanked the cord out again. "Whoops."

"Yeah, forgot about that." Wrecker tilted the droid's head upside down, poked around until he located the vocabulator, and yanked it out. "Try again."

This time, the droid's eyes flickered red but it made no sound.

Wrecker stepped back to admire the effect. "Let's leave it there."

"You sure about that?" Quinlan asked him. "I mean, what if Hunter has a grenade with him when he comes out?"

Wrecker headed to the cockpit. "He hasn't done that for a while."

"Uh." The Jedi hurried to catch up. "Hasn't done what for a while? Come out of the barracks with a grenade, or thrown a grenade in the galley?"

Wrecker grinned to himself and peered out the viewport, then at the readouts, but the landing pad was still dark and empty.

When he turned back around, Quinlan was standing in the doorway, arms folded and looking vaguely alarmed. "Wrecker, did you hear me?"

"Yup." Wrecker chortled. "He's never done either. Got you that time!"

The Jedi rolled his eyes and sat on the arm of the pilot seat, then tilted back to sit sideways and put his arms behind his head. "Ha, ha. Well – my shift starts now. Get some sleep, Wrecker; I'll stay on guard."

Wrecker hesitated. It felt a little weird, leaving someone else guarding the Havoc Marauder, but Hunter had seemed fine with it, so at last Wrecker nodded and left.

The bunkroom was quiet. Everyone, including Hunter, was asleep – even after the droid's loud voice. Wrecker headed for his own bed, then tripped over someone and nearly fell, barely catching himself against the edge of the upper bunk.

He glanced down. It was Tech again. He was sitting on the ground, fast asleep, head tilted back against the lower bunk.

"How do you always climb down, but not back up?" Wrecker muttered. "It doesn't make any sense."

When Tech didn't answer, Wrecker sighed, hoisted him into the top bunk, and tossed a blanket over him. Tech murmured something, but didn't wake up.

Wrecker got into his own bunk and shut his eyes. It was quiet and peaceful on the ship, especially after all the noise in the cantina . . . He started to doze off.

"Trilanthium," stated Tech, quite clearly, "is a particularly dense compound found only in specific asteroid fields. It is used in communications and –"

Wrecker stuffed his pillow over his ears.

Hunter woke to the sound of singing.

Who is that? he thought vaguely. The voice wasn't unpleasant, but, as far as he could remember, none of his squad mates were in the habit of singing. Humming, yes – Tech did that a lot, and even Crosshair and Hunter on occasion. Wrecker did, too, though he mostly whistled between his teeth. But none of them really sang, and certainly not dramatic songs like this one.

Hunter opened his eyes and gazed at the doorway for a long moment, then sat up to check the chronometer. He was surprised to see that he'd slept for nearly nine hours, but he wasn't about to complain. He felt much better than he had last night. Still half-listening to the singing, Hunter got out of bed and reached for his armor.

The voice reached the end of a phrase, paused, then returned on a particularly strong, high note and held it for much longer than the song required.

"Would you stop?!" yelled Crosshair from the lower deck.

The voice continued to hold the same note.

Hunter ran his hands through his hair. "Is that Vos?" he asked, though the question was largely rhetorical. The answer was evident.

The note cut off with a strangled yelp.

"Yes," Tech said neutrally, glancing up from where he was putting on his boots. "I'm not sure why he started."

"Who knows." Hunter tilted his head, listening, but the song did not resume. "I take it Wrecker's already up and around."

"Yes," said Tech. He got to his feet and checked his pistols. "Quinlan never woke me for my shift."

"Maybe he was up anyway." There was still utter silence from the galley, and Hunter decided it was time to intervene. Not bothering to finish putting on his armor, he opened the door and left the barracks.

Quinlan was sitting at the table, sorting efficiently through his pack of supplies as if he hadn't just been singing at the top of his lungs, while Wrecker stood over him, arms folded.

Hunter eyed Vos for a long, long moment and didn't say anything. The Jedi ignored him completely.

Crosshair stalked into the galley from the cargo hold, his hair damp. "What was that? It sounded like a dying krayt dragon."

"Didn't," retorted the Jedi. He held up a crumpled ration bar, tilted his head curiously at it, and opened it in a shower of crumbs.

A horrible screeching sound filled the air, and everyone spun to face the bunkroom door. Tech gazed resolutely back at them for several seconds, then shut off the sound with a tap of a button. "That was a dying krayt dragon."

Wrecker and Crosshair continued to stare at him.

"Hey," said Quinlan, looking intrigued. "Where'd you get that recording?"

Hunter sighed. "He records all kinds of things. Usually creatures."

"What, you came across a dying krayt dragon?"

"Nope," said Wrecker. "We came across a krayt dragon and killed it. Wasn't really a big one, though."

". . . Okay." Quinlan shook his head once, then poured the pulverized contents of the ration bar wrapper into one hand.

Hunter glanced at Crosshair. "Is it raining?"

The sniper slipped past him into the bunkroom, speaking over one shoulder. "It was twenty minutes ago. Haven't checked since I came in."

Tech sat down with a ration bar of his own, then performed a slight double-take and leaned closer to the Jedi. "What is that?"

"Um?" Quinlan checked the wrapper, which didn't have much left in the way of identification – the markings looked as though they'd been rubbed off. "I think it's desert plum and pinenut. Gotta wonder why they even make this flavor."

Tech opened his bar and held it out to compare. "They are completely different consistencies. I would never have guessed it was possible to crumble one of these so thoroughly."

"Yeah, this one's old," said the Jedi cheerfully. "I think it's a couple years out of date or something."

Hunter closed his eyes briefly and went back into the barracks. As the door slid shut behind him, he heard Tech screech, "A couple years?"

"That argument ought to last them a few minutes," Crosshair commented from where he was making his bunk.

Hunter smirked. "Ten credits says Tech wins."

There was a sudden crash from the galley.

". . . No bet," said Crosshair.

"I'll hold him!" shouted Wrecker. "Quick, Tech, grab it!"

Hunter sighed and asked himself why he'd agreed to have the Jedi travel with them all the way to Malachor.

At the second crash, Hunter almost went back into the galley, but then decided against it. He'd scarcely been awake ten minutes – the others could settle the argument themselves or die in the attempt.

By the time he'd finished preparing for the day, it was silent on the Marauder once again. Hunter opened the door and leaned out. "Is it safe now, or are you guys gonna keep destroying the ship?"

"It's safe!" yelled Wrecker.

Hunter entered the galley again. Vos was eating a new ration bar – not a single crumb of the other remained in sight – while Tech showed him something on his datapad. They seemed to have settled their disagreement and moved on, as though for a clone to tackle a Jedi general was perfectly normal. Wrecker was hovering over them, very obviously not looking at Hunter; he kept starting to grin, then stopping himself.

Hunter looked from one commando to the other, then narrowed his eyes. Somehow, at some point during the past two days, Tech and Wrecker had gone from being cautious around the Jedi to acting as though he were just another teammate.

And as for Quinlan . . . Last night at the cantina, he'd been like an entirely different person, especially when he told that story about the terrorist. Now, though, it looked like he and Tech and Wrecker had joined forces and were planning something.

No, it's too early for this, Hunter thought, disregarding the fact that it was nearly ten hundred hours. He hesitated near the table, silently weighing the merits of making a cup of caf against the outrage that might occur should the others catch him at it. He decided that less chaos was better and headed for the supply shelf instead.

The room became suspiciously quiet. Hunter hesitated for half an instant, then got a ration bar anyway. As he turned back towards the table, he found himself staring straight into the glowing red eyes of a tactical droid's head.

Hunter blinked at it, glanced down at where the head was wired to a power unit, went to the table, and sat down without a word.

Crosshair and Tech were smirking while Wrecker and Quinlan elbowed each other, looking highly pleased, despite what Hunter thought was an excellent lack of reaction on his part. He had a feeling that either Wrecker or the Jedi had come up with the plan, but said nothing.

They ate in silence for several glorious moments before Tech tapped his datapad and adjusted his goggles. "This design . . . I'm not sure how to reconcile the amount of space with the power needed. I was sure I'd figured it out, too."

Wrecker and Vos glanced at each other, grinned, and spoke together. "Trilanthium."

"Yes, that could – Yes, perfect!" Tech stared at them, eyes wide with surprise. "Why didn't I think of that?!"

Hunter put his head on the table and groaned.

"Okay," said Quinlan, crumpling his ration bar wrapper and tossing it into the disposal unit. "We've got to decide what we're doing today."

The commandos straightened up, and Hunter gestured for him to continue.

"Last night, I looked over the intel we've got so far," Quinlan told them. "We've got a couple of unrelated goals. First, we want to investigate Dverik, right?"

"Right," said Tech.

"Okay. That might only be from a distance, but we'll see. Second, we need to investigate the Prince's place and figure out who he is, what he wants, where he's sending the artifacts. But that one's going to be problematic . . . Like I said last night, it's possible we'll have to wait to investigate the Prince until after we get back from Malachor, but it's also possible that Vythia'll figure stuff out by then."

"We could split up," Hunter suggested, a bit unwillingly.

"Wait," said Crosshair, not seeming to notice that Hunter had spoken. "Vos, I thought you told us the Prince was selling the artifacts to Dooku."

"He is, reportedly, but that's only if we go by what Grakkus told us. Also . . . as far as the Sith are concerned, Dooku's not the highest one."

"So, Dooku is the apprentice," Tech mused. "Then who is the master?"

"Darth Sidious. But we don't know who he is," Quinlan replied, frowning. "Matter of fact, we don't even know what he is."

Crosshair met his eyes. "You don't know?"

"The Sith work in secret," Quinlan said. "Ever since their whole Rule of Two was implemented, anyway. There was a Zabrak . . . the apprentice of this Sidious. Obi-Wan – I mean, General Kenobi – killed him during the Battle of Naboo. Now Dooku's the apprentice, and he's training a Dathomirian named Ventress."

"But that makes three, if this Sith Lord is still the master," said Tech.

"Ventress isn't a Sith, really," Quinlan said. "She's a Force-adept working for Dooku, and he's taught her some things, but if she really wants to be a Sith, she'll have to wait until Dooku kills his own master. Or until she kills Dooku, but I don't see that happening."

"That doesn't make sense," Wrecker said. "If there are only two Sith, and they've got all these Jedi against them, why would they go around killing each other?"

"Short answer: the Sith, for thousands of years, have been determined to exterminate the Jedi. Completely. Of course, to be fair the Jedi have been out to exterminate the Sith for thousands of years, too – though the Sith have a couple advantages now. They're much harder to find, and they're willing to go to extreme lengths to win. Lengths the Jedi won't go to." He slouched back against the wall, looking thoughtful. ". . . Anyway. The whole Sith Code has this thing with gaining power. They spent so much time fighting each other that they went thousands of years without truly making headway against the Jedi Order. So, Darth Bane decided that there would be only a master and an apprentice – one to hold the power, one to covet it – and that they would work together to defeat the Jedi in secrecy, rather than with numbers. They've been working and planning from the farthest reaches of the galaxy for a millennia now."

He narrowed his eyes. "And now they've emerged, so they must think they're almost ready to defeat us. But . . . how – how is always the question."