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By Root 289 0

The labyrinthine ways of bureaucrats and the military could be slow, but just as certain to accomplish the desired results when ma-nipulated properly. As the spy had been taught from childhood, any job could be done with the correct tools. In order to undermine a military organization or a gov-ernment hundreds of thousands strong, subtlety was a must. One thought of armies and navies as giant Sauropoda-huge beasts that lumbered ponderously along their paths, crushing anything that got in their way, often without notice. A single person could not hope to stop or even turn such a beast by him - or her-self, no matter how physically strong or adept. Hence the old saying: "If a ronto stumbles, do not stand under it to break its fall."

No, the way to move something so massive in a new direction was to convince the monster that the change of course was its own idea.

In theory, this was also simple. One planted the idea in the right place at the right time and waited for it to take hold. In practice, it was somewhat harder-a com-plex game of wits.

The recent transport destruction had created concern and not a little paranoia. But the threat was still too nebulous to turn the monster from its path so that it could be overwhelmed. A bit of mystery was all to the good, but military leaders were not swayed overmuch by the unseen. They lived and died by facts-or what they could be convinced to believe were facts.

The threat had to become more real. What Vaetes and his people needed to see at this point was an actual vil-lain. And there existed on the base someone who fit the bill perfectly.

Too bad he would have to suffer, but it was what it was.

12

Zan sat on the backless folding stool he favored for playing his quetarra, tuning the instrument. When he wasn’t playing it, it rested in a spun-fiber case that was light, but strong enough to support him jumping up and down on it without damage to the instrument.

Af-ter a few drinks one late evening, Zan had demonstrated this with considerable gusto.

Watching a Talusian Zabrak hopping around on an instrument case like a gi-ant, demented Geonosian leaf-leaper, his cranial horns nearly puncturing the low ceiling, was a sight that Jos was fairly certain he could have charged credits for peo-ple to see.

Jos was stretched out on his cot, reading the latest flatscan update of the Surgica Galactica Journal. Some hotknife thorax chopper had posted an article on mi-crosurgical laminotomy revision for spinal injury on the battlefield, and it was all Jos could do to keep from laughing out loud. "Use the pemeter scope to check for nerve impingement." Or:

"Application of sthenic field and homeostatic phase induction is critical at this junc-ture."

Pemeter scopes? Sthenic fields? Homeostatic phase in-ductors? Oh, yeah, right. Outside of a twenty-million-credit surgical suite in a first-class medcenter, your chances of finding any of these, much less all of them together, were about as good as reaching lightspeed by flapping your arms. It was obvious this guy had never been in the field. Love to see what the wonder slicer could do with just a vibroscalpel and a hemostat on a patient with a ruptured aorta...

Zan finished tuning his quetarra and strummed a chord.

After a moment, he began plucking the strings, softly at first, then a bit louder. Jos didn’t mind listening to Zan play, despite what he said sometimes just to get a rise out of his friend.

The piece Zan played was fast, had a good beat, and after a few seconds Jos gave up reading and listened. Was that leap-jump? Was Zan actually playing some-thing written in the last hundred years? Wonders, it seemed, would never cease.

Jos didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t matter if he did, because when he was really into it, Zan tuned out all distractions. Once, about six months before, a fumble-fingered Gungan harvester who ought not to have been issued any weapon more dangerous than a stick had somehow activated one of the pulse bombs he carried on his hopper. The hapless amphibian had turned him-self, his vehicle, and a goodly section of