"I advise against trying. "

"I advise against resisting, Jeke Kerron. " Something hardened in his eyes. Stryver stood and reached for her carbonizer.

She was never entirely sure what happened next.

Clunker moved. That was expected. She had planned for that. But the attack didn't come from his direction. It came from four other angles simultaneously and she was flung back into her seat by convergent energy pulses. Her suit sparked and smoked; her limbs shook. For a potentially fatal moment, her vision grayed out into nothing.

Then she recovered, and the crowded cantina was exactly as it had been-except that the smuggler and his droid were gone.

"Better drink up, " the bartender cluttered, indicating the gla.s.s still sitting before her. "He asked us not to kick you out immediately, but there's a limit to my generosity. "

"He asked...?" She snapped her mouth shut as her brain caught up. He had been coming here for days. That was how she had found him. She had thought him wasting money on fellow gamblers and lowlifes, when in actual fact he had been preparing a trap. For her.

The crowd studiously avoided her challenging stare.

Stryver laughed on the inside, profoundly pleased on two points.

One: she was still alive.

Two: it was good to have a worthy adversary.

Dao Stryver had come a long way from her pit fighting days, when a young Gektl's life was cheap and expected to last not even a single week. She had accrued considerable glory since then, and considered herself the living embodiment of the Mandalorian creed. War was fought by individuals, not by Emperors and politicians. Battles were decided by people whose names might never be recorded in history. But the point wasn't history, or even who won. Anyone who strove hard enough could become a hero. That was the point.

Her enemy understood. It was important to her that he did. She had traced his history backward from captain to first officer of a very different vessel, where the trail had ended. But the captain of that ship, Jeke Kerron, had had a reputation for being entirely too smart for his own good. He had made enemies among several cartels and ultimately disappeared. It was a simple leap to wonder if one had taken the place of the other.

They might never be on the same side again, Stryver thought, but at least from now on they would be playing the same game.

She downed the liquor and shouldered her way out of the Wing and Wanderer, into the dry glare of Tatooine. With her helmet back in place, she was just another Mandalorian, one among many on the gladiatorial world. She would search every s.p.a.ceport in the city as a matter of course, even though she suspected the Auriga Fire would slip through her fingers once more. Then she would report to the Mandalore. If required to do so, she would hunt her enemy to the ends of the galaxy, and she would be ready for him when they met again. If not, she would go back to studying the Empire and the Republic, safe in the knowledge that there would soon be glory enough for everyone.

War was coming. The certainty of it warmed her warrior's soul.

She raised her eyes to stare at the sun and wished the man who called himself "Jet Nebula" good fortune in battle.