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She shrugged. “Whoops!” Her voice was merry, and she broke into laughter as attractive as wineglasses shattering on a permacrete floor. She was still laughing as she pulled the mask and other glove off.

Lecersen shook his head and joined Jaxton at the bar. He set his helmet on the bar to one side. “Even sicker than I had guessed.”

Jaxton looked over at him and gave a small, glum nod.

Lecersen did not know Parova well. She had been maneuvered by Jaxton, Treen, and Bramsin into a position within Admiral Bwua’tu’s command hierarchy after the conspiracy had been formed. And though the eventual assassination attempt on Bwua’tu had failed—it had resulted in internal injuries, the loss of his right arm, and a coma—it had been just as successful as if it had been carried off as planned. Parova had been appointed by Chief of State Daala as acting Chief of Naval Operations, giving her all the power, influence, and resources she would have had if Bwua’tu had died.

Lecersen’s due-diligence research on the woman strongly suggested that she was competent, resourceful, and dedicated to the conspirators’ common principles of order, unity, and dispassionate rule of law … but this display gave him pause. Bwua’tu had been an impediment, an obstacle between them and their mutual goal, but he was an honorable warrior, deserving of respect, not mockery.

The bartender, a silvery protocol droid styled as a female, moved to stand before Lecersen. “May I bring you a drink?” The droid wore a restraining bolt, the large variety called an Inhibitor, which, when pulled, would take with it every recording made by the droid during the time it wore the bolt. This was an admirable security touch, a device that made any droid temporarily pressed into service a nonthreat to security.

“Sonic Screwdriver.” Lecersen turned to face the others. “Well? Any progress while Jaxton and I were hostages of the Jedi?”

Treen smiled. “I think so, but it is Jaxton himself who offers confirmation.”

Lecersen looked at the general. “Well?”

“I just spent about an hour being debriefed by Daala.” Jaxton took a small sip from his drink, which smelled like something warm composed of caf, cream, and Corellian brandy. “She was under perfect, rigid control. Like the string of a musical instrument tightened until one note played on it will cause it to snap.”

“Excellent. So now we may just need that one little pluck to set things into motion.”

Bramsin shook his head. “If I may introduce a metaphor that could prove painful to the two of you, we want to program a skifter first.”

A skifter was a rigged card used to cheat at sabacc. Lecersen did not allow himself to react to the reference, but Jaxton shot the aged Senator a dirty look. Lecersen and Jaxton had each lost the million-credit stake with which they had bought their way into the celebrity sabacc tournament that had just been held on the Errant Venture. Lecersen saw the loss as one of the inevitable possibilities of a gamble, but Jaxton had apparently had more emotion invested in the likelihood of his own victory.

Bramsin continued. “Our odds of making this coup fast and bloodless increase if we can cause some mistrust by Daala of her security details. If she has reason to mistrust Galactic Alliance Security …”

Lecersen thought it over. “Then she’ll rely on her first love. The fleet. The navy. Even if it isn’t the navy of her early days.”

Parova smiled. “And I would be very happy and proud to provide the Chief of State with an elite security detail.”

Lecersen’s drink arrived, and he took a sip. The protocol droid had provided an absolutely average, by-the-recipe-book Sonic Screwdriver, the standard proportions of fruit juice and liquor, indistinguishable from the drink as served in a million cantinas and spaceports. He set it down again. “What if she goes to the Mandalorians instead?”

“We don’t think she will.” Treen’s voice was certain; the only thing not certain was whether she was speaking of the conspirators in general or employing the royal we. “As she is subjected to more and more