Never was one for crowds, myself,” Skeck said as he, Archyr, and Shryne were negotiating Aldera’s throng of demonstrators.

“Is that what first took you to the Outer Rim?” Shryne asked.

Skeck mocked the idea with a motion of dismissal. “I just hang there for the food.”

In addition to keeping out the cold, their long coats, hats, and high boots supplied hiding places for blasters and other tools of the smuggling trade. Jula, Brudi, and Eyl Dix had remained with the drop ship, which was docked in a circular bay a couple of kilometers west of the palace.

It was Shryne’s first visit to Alderaan. From what little he had seen, the planet lived up to its reputation as both a beautiful world and an arena for political dissent, notwithstanding Alderaan’s allegedly pacifist views. The mood of the enormous crowd, made up of war refugees and those who had arrived from countless worlds to demonstrate their solidarity, seemed to be in keeping with those views. But Shryne had already zeroed in on scores of beings who clearly hoped to provoke the marchers to violence, perhaps as a means of being assured extensive HoloNet coverage, and thus making their point with Palpatine.

Or maybe, just maybe, Alderaan had the Emperor himself to thank for the rabble-rousers.

Judging by the way in which Aldera’s police units were deployed, they had no interest in confrontation, and perhaps had been ordered to exercise restraint at all costs. The mere fact that the marchers were being allowed to voice their protests and display their holoslogans in such close proximity to the Royal Palace, and that Senator Bail Organa himself would occasionally plant himself in full view of the crowd, showed that the restraint was genuine.

Alderaan really did care about the little guy.

For Shryne, the presence of such a huge crowd also suggested that Senator Fang Zar was more than a clever politician. While spiriting him off Alderaan would never have posed an insurmountable challenge, the milling crowds combined with Alderaan’s deliberately lax policy toward orbital insertions and exits was going to make the pickup as easy as one, two, three.

Not bad for Shryne’s first mission.

There might even be a small amount of good attached to it—particularly if the rumors he had heard about Zar over the years were true.

Now it boiled down to keeping the appointment with him.

Shryne, Skeck, and Archyr had already circled the palace twice, primarily to scope out potential problems at the south gate entrance, where the prearranged meet was supposed to take place. Shryne found it interesting that Zar’s ostensible reason for making a low-key departure was to keep from involving Organa in his problems, but Shryne wasn’t clear on just what those problems were. Both Zar and Organa had been outspoken members of the Loyalist Committee, so what could Zar have done to cause problems for himself that didn’t already involve Organa?

Was he in a fix with Palpatine?

Shryne tried to convince himself that Zar’s troubles were none of his business; that the sooner he accustomed himself to simply executing a job, the better—for him and for Jula. This, as opposed to thinking like a Jedi, which involved looking to the Force as a means of gauging possible repercussions and ramifications of his actions.

In that sense, the Alderaan mission was the first day of the rest of his life.

Olee Starstone was the only other issue he had to clear from his mind. His feelings for her didn’t spring from attachment of the sort she would be the first to ridicule. In plain fact, he was worried about her to the point of distraction.

In response to Shryne’s decision to follow his own path, she was about as angry as a Jedi was allowed to be, though some of the other Jedi had said that they understood.

All seven had taken the battered transport and gone in search of surviving Jedi. Shryne feared that it would just be a matter of time before they got themselves in serious trouble, but he wasn’t about to serve as their watchdog. More to the point, they had seen the risks they were taking as flowing from the will of the Force.

Well, who knew for sure?

Shryne wasn’t omniscient. Maybe they would succeed against all odds. Maybe the Jedi, in league with political protesters and sympathetic military commanders, could bring Palpatine to justice for what he had done.

Unlikely. But a possibility, nevertheless.

Jula had been generous enough to loan Filli to the Jedi, outwardly to help them sort through the data they had downloaded from the beacon databases. Shryne suspected, however, that Jula’s real intent was to disable Starstone’s reckless determination. The closer Starstone and Filli grew, the more the young Jedi would be forced to take a hard look at her choices. With time, Filli might even be able to lure her out of her attachment to the perished Jedi order, just as Jula had Shryne.

But then, Shryne had been halfway along before his mother had even entered the picture.

His mother.

He was still getting used to that development: that he was the son of this particular woman. Perhaps the way some of the troopers had had to adjust to the fact that they were all clones of one man.

Through his comlink’s wireless earpiece, Shryne heard Jula’s voice.

“I just heard from our bundle,” she said. “He’s in motion.”

“We’re working our way around to him now,” Shryne said into the audio pickup fastened to the synthfur collar of his coat.

“You sure you’re going to be able to recognize him from the holoimages?”

“Recognizing him won’t be a problem. But finding him in this crowd could be.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t expect this big a turnout.”

“I’m guessing no one did.”

“Does that say something for the Emperor’s days being numbered?”

“Someone’s days, anyway.” Shryne paused, then said: “Hold for a moment.”

The palace’s south gate entrance was within sight now, but in the time it had taken Shryne, Skeck, and Archyr to complete their third circuit, a mob had formed. Three human speakers standing atop repulsorlift platforms were urging everyone to press through the tall gates and onto the palace grounds. Anticipating trouble, a group of forty or so royal troops dressed in ceremonial armor and slack hats had deployed themselves outside the gates, armed with an array of non-lethal crowd control devices, including sonic devices, shock batons, and stun nets.

“Roan, what’s going on?” Jula asked.

“Things are getting rowdy. Everyone’s being warned away from the south gate entrance.”

The crowd surged, and Shryne felt himself lifted from his feet and carried toward the palace. The cordon of troops issued a final warning. When the crowd surged again, two front-line guards sporting backpack rigs began to coat the cobblestone plaza with a thick layer of repellent foam. The crowd surged back in response, but dozens of demonstrators closest to the front failed to step back in time and were immediately immobilized in the rapidly spreading goo. A few of them were able to retreat by surrendering their footgear, but the rest were stuck fast. The trio of hovering agitators took advantage of the situation, accusing Alderaan’s Queen and vizier of attempting to hinder the marchers’ rights to free assembly, and of kowtowing to the Emperor.

The surges grew more powerful, with demonstrators trapped in the center of the crowd taking the brunt of all the pushing and shoving. Shryne began to edge toward the perimeter, with Skeck and Archyr to either side of him. When he could, he enabled his comlink.

“Jula, we’re not going to be able to get to the gate.”

“Which also means that our bundle won’t be able to exit the grounds that way.”

“Do we have a substitute rendezvous?”

“Roan, I’ve lost voice contact with him.”

“Probably temporary. When you hear from him, just tell him to stay put, wherever he is.”

“Where will you be?”

Shryne studied the palace’s curved south wall. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way in.”