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It would be… impolite.

He could manage to face another hour. That’s all you have to do, he told himself. Just an hour, the next hour. Do your rounds, make your reports.

He could get through another hour. And after that…

Well. Time enough to worry about that when he got there. For now, this hour was all that mattered.

28

Jos finished his rounds. He knew about the farewell party for the HNE troupe, and normally there would be little reluctance on his part to join them. But now…

What if Tolk was there?

Seeing her in the OT was bad enough; he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing her in a social setting. What if she was there with someone else?

He shook his head. At least in the cantina he wouldn’t be drinking alone. Sooner or later he would run into her again. It just wasn’t that big a base.

To deep with it. Jos marched out of the OT, feeling much like a man walking to his own execution.

It was crowded in the cantina. Also hot, noisy, and smelly. Maybe Jos wouldn’t encounter Tolk after all in this crowd.

That hope didn’t last long. It was, in fact, Tolk who found him, before he could get his first drink. He turned around and there she was, right there, her gaze fixed on his face, searching it for—what?

He didn’t know what to say. He knew he should say something, but she was so lovely, even just in her scrubs, with her hair up and exhaustion evident in her face, that she stole the breath from his lungs.

“Tolk…,” he managed. “I—”

“I’ve been thinking a lot, Jos. There’s more to all this than just how we feel about each other. There’s more to this war than just here, what we do—who we are to each other. I need some time to process it, on my own.” She took a breath. “I’m requesting a transfer to Rimsoo Three.”

His mouth was dry. Rimsoo Three was over a thousand klicks north, across the Sea of Sponges. “What are you saying? Can’t we at least talk about it?”

“No, not yet.”

Jos blew out a big breath. He didn’t want to say it, but it had to be said: “Does this mean we’re through?”

She hesitated. “It means we’re apart for a while.”

There was no way to dissuade her, he saw. But if she transferred out, he’d never see her again. Of that he was sure.

“I have to go,” she said. And with that, she was gone.

Jos made his way to the bar. He was numb. What had happened? What had gone wrong? What had he said or done?

He still couldn’t believe it. Done. Gone. Just like that.

His mind scrambled frantically for some purchase, something to hold on to. As chief surgeon, he could refuse to let her transfer out, could say she was too valuable here—but what good would that do? How could they work together? Play sabacc together? How could they—

Questions swirled around in his head like dust motes, like a swarm of fire gnats.

He needed a drink.

He reached the bar, but before he could order anything, he heard a deep growl. He turned to look.

Now there’s something you don’t see every day, he thought. A droid and a Wookiee playing hologames.

The game was called dejarik; although Jos didn’t play, he was familiar with it. I-Five and the Wookiee sat at a small corner table amid all the commotion. The Wookiee was covered with coal-black shaggy fur, save for a star-shaped white patch high on the left quadrant of his chest. And at the moment, he seemed really upset, even for a Wookiee—and that was saying something.

“Never a boring minute, eh?”

Jos looked down and saw Den Dhur standing beside him. Den gestured toward the dejarik table and sighed. “You might remember my mentioning once or twice before that I was trying to help I-Five get drunk?”

“Yeah?”

“Well…”

Kaird was, after a fashion, enjoying himself, even though he was of necessity wearing the Kubaz suit. He didn’t mind seeing people have a good time, and the fact that he knew—and would do—something that would ruin their high spirits did not diminish his enjoyment. When news of the change in the bota became widespread, chaos would most likely ensue. The misfortunes of war.

Too bad. While he wasn’t sentimentally attached to anyone here—sentimentality being