Coruscant had always been Will's home.
That was precisely why returning to it illegally felt so strange though necessary.
He had been born somewhere beneath those endless towers, even if he remembered nothing of the persons that had brought him into the world. He had been raised in the Jedi Temple, had learned to walk along its marble corridors, had bruised his knees in its training salles, had learned how to meditate beneath its gardens and fight under Cin Drallig's unforgiving supervision.
He knew the smell of the Temple after rain.
He knew which lifts vibrated slightly between levels twenty-three and twenty-four.
He knew which archive corridors younglings used when trying to sneak back to their dormitories after curfew.
He knew which training rooms Cin preferred because their floors were harder and therefore taught clumsy students faster.
He knew where Siri Tachi used to stand when she wanted to watch him spar.
He knew the building.
Loved it, in ways that were increasingly difficult to describe.
And now he was returning to Coruscant with the deliberate intention of infiltrating it.
That realization remained with him while the unregistered Z-95 dropped out of hyperspace on the far side of the system.
Stars contracted abruptly into points.
The enormous urban sphere of Coruscant appeared ahead.
Even from distance, the planet glowed.
No dark continents.
No oceans.
No nature.
Just civilization covering virtually everything, artificial illumination making the planet look like some impossible jewel that had swallowed a star from within.
Will sat alone inside the cramped cockpit, gloved hands resting lightly against the controls while the modified fighter drifted under minimal thrust.
No Republic transponder.
No Jedi identification.
No military flight plan.
According to the official records, the starfighter did not exist.
Which meant, for the next several hours, neither did he.
The cockpit's navigation display pulsed.
A secondary route Spark had prepared appeared in pale green: an old commercial approach used by independent repair craft, salvage dealers, and courier ships avoiding the primary military lanes.
Will breathed slowly.
"Let's hope your questionable engineering works, Spark."
The ship, unsurprisingly, did not answer.
He activated the false transponder.
For the next forty minutes, the Z-95 became the Wayfarer Seven, a privately owned courier registered to a small freight syndicate on Brentaal IV that had officially gone bankrupt six years earlier.
The registration code should not have worked.
That was what made it useful.
Coruscant traffic control processed millions upon millions of vessels, and systems that large did not survive through perfection. They survived through automated assumptions.
Spark had learned to exploit assumptions the way Burner exploited structural weaknesses for his detonators.
A civilian traffic controller hailed him twelve minutes later.
"Wayfarer Seven, identify cargo and destination."
Will touched a control on his throat.
The voice modulator he had brought aboard distorted his natural voice into something older, rougher.
"Machine components. Private delivery. Industrial district nine-six-three."
A pause.
"Commercial authorization?"
Will transmitted the forged manifest.
Another pause.
The kind that made hands drift closer to weapons.
Then "Authorization accepted. Maintain corridor Kappa-Nine and descend to surface traffic altitude twelve."
Will released a breath.
"Copy."
The Z-95 descended.
Coruscant rose around him.
First came orbital docks and military stations.
Then enormous upper-city towers punching through clouds.
Then traffic.
Thousands of vehicles moving through invisible lanes at impossible speeds, all coordinated by algorithms, habit, and shared faith that nobody would suddenly decide to become stupid...
stupid enough, that is.
Will lowered the Z-95 beneath the most heavily monitored government districts.
The Temple appeared far to his right.
Even kilometers away, it dominated the skyline.
Five spires rising from the massive trapezoidal structure.
Home.
And target.
Will stared at it perhaps a second too long.
Then banked away.
Not yet.
He landed the Z-95 inside an old private hangar hidden among warehouse stacks in a surface industrial district nearly two hundred kilometers from the Senate quarter.
The place had once serviced courier vessels.
Now it mostly serviced people who did not want questions.
Will paid for seventy-two hours in advance through anonymous credit chips.
The hangar attendant—a bored Rodian with one cybernetic eye—looked at the unregistered fighter, looked at Will's hooded figure, and decided that curiosity probably shortened life expectancy.
"Extra twenty credits," the Rodian said, "and I never saw your ship."
Will placed thirty on the counter.
"You never saw me either."
The Rodian swept the credits away.
"Who?"
Good man.
Will stepped outside.
The industrial district was alive despite the late hour.
Steam rose through drainage grates.
Cargo haulers rumbled overhead.
Massive automated cranes shifted containers under harsh yellow lights.
The distant city center glowed against the clouds, but out here Coruscant felt almost like another world.
Less polished.
More real and honest, because it didn't had the politicians.
The planet's surface districts were the bones beneath the Republic's expensive clothing.
Will pulled the hood lower.
His clone armor was gone.
That felt wrong.
He had left almost all recognizable equipment aboard the Z-95: no Bad Company shoulder plate, no green curved saber, no blue shoto-pike, no Jedi cloak and robes.
Nothing that screamed Jedi Knight.
Under the dark civilian coat he wore flexible body armor and a simple utility harness.
And hidden along his ribs were two empty weapon sheaths.
He needed to fill them.
The market he wanted was not listed on any map.
Places like it never were.
Officially, the district contained scrap merchants, industrial recyclers, component brokers, and independent repair yards.
Unofficially, almost anything could be purchased if someone knew the correct door to knock on.
Will had learned that during his first domestic counterintelligence operation.
Quinlan Vos had taught him one important truth about Coruscant:
The upper levels sold influence.
The lower levels sold everything else.
Will descended through a freight elevator that smelled of lubricants and old urine, sharing it with two Nikto dockworkers, a Duros mechanic carrying half a droid torso, and a human woman whose coat clearly concealed a blaster rifle.
Nobody spoke.
When the lift opened, noise swallowed him.
The underground marketplace stretched through an abandoned cargo terminal.
Improvised stalls occupied old loading platforms.
Neon signs flickered in half a dozen languages.
Smoke from cooking stands mixed with industrial vapor and spice fumes.
Someone argued loudly over the price of a power converter.
Someone else was selling obviously stolen Republic medical kits.
A pair of civilian deserters of the Republic Army might have been seated in a distant corner—or they might simply have been human mercenaries with suspiciously similar armors. Will deliberately did not look too long.
Information markets existed deeper inside.
He moved slowly.
Not like a Jedi.
That mattered.
Jedi walked differently.
Straight-backed.
Balanced.
Aware of everyone around them.
Their eyes tracked exits.
Their breathing remained controlled.
All excellent habits.
All very useful if one wanted to identify a Jedi.
So Will altered himself.
Shoulders slightly forward.
Weight heavier on the heels.
Eyes more interested in merchandise than threats.
Hands occasionally shoved into coat pockets.
He even allowed himself to bump shoulders once with a passing Weequay and mutter:
"Watch it."
The Weequay turned.
Will kept walking.
No challenge.
No elegant Jedi calm.
Just another irritated man in the crowd.
That was the hardest part of infiltration.
Not costumes.
Not fake names.
Behavior.
You could put a senator in miner's clothing and still identify him from twenty meters away if he moved like servants should clear his path.
You could put a Jedi in rags and still recognize the stiffness of the old bums of the Order.
So Will practiced being ordinary.
It was surprisingly difficult.
The first broker he approached sold architectural data.
Not publicly, of course.
Publicly the shop sold "construction survey archives."
The shopkeeper was an elderly Sullustan named Pek Tarro, with thick magnification lenses covering both eyes and fingers permanently stained with machine lubricant.
Will had researched him months earlier while examining Death Watch supply routes.
Pek sold old municipal schematics, decommissioned transit maps, customs station layouts—
—and stolen government construction data when sufficiently motivated.
Will entered the narrow stall.
Pek barely looked up.
"Closed."
"It's not."
"It is for people without appointments."
Will placed a credit chip on the counter.
Pek looked at it.
Then at Will.
"Still closed."
Another chip.
Pek stared.
"How architectural are your interests?"
Will allowed the modulator at his throat to deepen his voice.
"Very."
The Sullustan removed his lenses.
"Government?"
Will didn't answer.
Pek sighed.
"Military?"
Silence.
Pek's ears twitched.
"Jedi."
Will stared at him.
Pek stared back.
Then slowly smiled.
"Expensive."
"I assumed."
"How expensive depends on what you're asking."
"Temple schematics."
The smile vanished.
Pek leaned backward.
"No."
Will did not move.
"No?"
"No."
"Interesting."
"There are things I sell," Pek said quietly. "There are things I don't. Jedi Temple maps belong in category two."
"Because you respect the Jedi?"
Pek laughed.
"No. Because I respect staying alive."
Will put another credit chip down.
Pek didn't touch it.
"Security sectors," Will said. "Not public halls. Detention infrastructure."
Pek's ears flattened slightly.
"Why?"
"Will I gain a discount for telling?"
The Sullustan looked offended.
"That joke was terrible."
"It wasn't a joke."
For several seconds they evaluated one another.
Finally Pek leaned forward.
"There's no complete civilian map."
"I know."
"Temple architectural databases are internal."
"I know."
"Some original construction records exist in municipal archives, but they're centuries outdated."
"I know."
Pek narrowed his eyes.
"You've done research."
"Yes."
"So why are you here?"
"Because somewhere in this city, maintenance contractors have worked inside the Temple."
Pek's expression changed.
There.
Will had him.
Maintenance workers.
Power systems.
Ventilation.
Plumbing.
Structural reinforcement.
Even sacred institutions eventually needed someone to repair a conduit.
"You want service architecture," Pek said.
"I want enough to reach the high-security detention wing without crossing major Temple traffic."
"That," Pek replied, "is considerably more dangerous."
"Good thing I brought considerably more credits."
It took nearly an hour.
Pek did not possess everything.
Nobody did.
But criminals survived by assembling incomplete truths.
He produced partial ventilation routes from a contractor used nine years earlier.
An emergency evacuation diagram copied from fire-suppression systems.
Old maintenance access codes that almost certainly no longer worked but revealed naming conventions.
Structural maps showing where newer prison modules connected to older Temple foundations.
Most importantly, Pek possessed something much more recent.
A three-month-old work order for reinforced power conduits servicing restricted detention levels.
Someone had bribed a maintenance supervisor.
The document contained no prisoner information.
But it included access routes.
Will studied the holographic plans.
Main access was impossible.
Temple Guards.
Security scanners.
Biometric identification.
Internal monitoring.
But underneath the prison wing ran an old maintenance channel connecting cooling systems to a service junction beside the southern hangars.
Narrow.
Uncomfortable.
And probably not designed for human passage anymore.
Perfect.
"How much?" Will asked.
Pek named a number.
Will stared at him.
"You're joking."
"I thought Jedi Temple information was valuable."
Will's pulse skipped once.
Did Pek know?
No.
Probably not.
The word had been casual.
Still, Will shifted his posture slightly.
"Half."
"Eighty percent."
"Sixty."
"Seventy-five."
"Sixty-five and I forget you sell Republic military records."
Pek stared.
Then laughed softly.
"You're an asshole."
"I've been told."
"Seventy."
"Done."
Credits changed hands.
Will uploaded the schematics into an encrypted datapad.
Pek pointed one thick finger toward him.
"You did not buy these here."
"I've never met you."
"And if Temple investigators come asking?"
"You sold nothing."
Pek's expression hardened.
"No, friend. If the Temple comes asking, you don't know my name."
Will nodded.
"Understood."
He left.
One problem solved.
Many remaining.
The disguise came next.
That was easier.
The underworld loved masks.
Will bought a full-face tactical helmet from an equipment dealer specializing in bounty hunter gear.
The helmet itself was unremarkable by Coruscant standards: matte black plating, narrow amber visor, internal respirator, encrypted short-range communications.
But the reason Will chose it was the voice system.
Integrated vocal modulation.
Not cheap theatrical distortion.
Real identity masking.
Pitch alteration, resonance modification, formant scrambling.
With the helmet sealed, Will sounded nothing like himself.
He tested it in the stall.
"Can you understand me?"
The helmet transformed the words into the voice of an older man with a coarse metallic edge.
The dealer nodded.
"Clear."
"Recognizable?"
"Only if you're famous enough for someone to analyze recordings."
That was reassuring.
And inconvenient.
Will was becoming famous enough.
"Can you randomize output?"
"For another hundred."
Will stared at him.
The dealer shrugged.
"Privacy is expensive."
"Apparently."
Will paid.
The helmet disappeared into a plain equipment bag.
Next came clothing.
Dark industrial trousers.
Reinforced boots.
A long gray coat with internal equipment loops.
Flexible armor plates with no identifying marks.
Gloves capable of confusing partial fingerprint scanners.
Not enough to fool serious Jedi security.
But the disguise's purpose was not to walk through the main door.
It existed so that if someone saw him, they saw someone else.
The weapons were more complicated.
Will had made that decision before leaving the Resolute Dawn.
No lightsabers.
That hurt more than expected.
A lightsaber was not simply a weapon.
To a Jedi, it was an extension of identity.
The Kyber crystal responded to its wielder.
The balance became familiar over years.
Going into danger without one felt almost like deliberately leaving a hand behind.
But entering the Temple prison wing carrying a weapon whose energy signature might be recognized by internal sensors and its own aesthetic was very specific to him was idiotic.
Especially his green saber.
The curved hilt alone was distinctive enough that half the Temple could identify it.
So he needed something else.
He found the weapons merchant in the deepest section of the market.
A Trandoshan named Kressh Tal, ironically enough.
The shop was behind two locked doors and a fake droid-parts warehouse.
Inside were weapons that could get a person executed on several worlds merely for possessing them.
Will ignored blasters.
Ignored thermal detonators.
Ignored disruptors.
He stopped in front of a locked case.
Inside lay three dark metallic rods.
Vibroblade cores.
The merchant approached.
"Phrik alloy," Kressh said.
Will looked at him.
"Pure?"
"Composite."
"How much phrik?"
"Enough."
"That wasn't the question."
The Trandoshan hissed softly.
"Forty-two percent phrik matrix, layered around cortosis-resistant structural alloy."
Will's eyes narrowed.
Enough to withstand lightsaber contact and nullify them.
Exactly what he needed.
"I'll take two."
Kressh studied him.
"You fight Jedi?"
"Sometimes."
That was technically true.
The merchant grinned.
"These are unfinished."
"I know."
"You need smith."
"I have one."
Will purchased them.
The amount hurt.
But black-market phrik was never cheap.
The "friend" was a human weaponsmith named Deren Vol, a former Republic Judicial armorer who had left government employment after deciding regulations were "written by people who had never been stabbed", and he received more money to sustain his family this way too.
Will had met him during his domestic intelligence work too.
Deren operated from a workshop hidden beneath an industrial repair business.
When Will arrived, Deren was welding the frame of what looked suspiciously like an illegal repeating blaster mount.
He raised his goggles.
"Kriss?"
Will stopped.
"That obvious?"
Deren pointed at his stance.
"You walk like someone who expects the floor to attack you, mate."
"Damn."
"You're getting better, though."
Will placed the two phrik cores on the workbench.
Deren's eyebrows rose.
"Oh."
"I need two short vibroblades."
"How short?"
Will indicated roughly forty centimeters.
"Single edge?"
"Yes. Slight forward curve. Reinforced point. Hand guards."
Deren examined the metal.
"These aren't decorative."
"No."
"Who are you stabbing?"
"Hopefully nobody."
Deren gave him a look.
"You brought black-market phrik to my workshop at midnight and asked for lightsaber-resistant knives, mate."
"When you phrase it like that, it does sound suspicious."
"It is suspicious."
Will shrugged.
Deren sighed.
"Fine. Give me three hours."
"Two."
"Fuck you."
"Two and a half."
"Three."
"Alright, alright."
While Deren worked, Will sat in the rear of the workshop and opened the encrypted communication unit.
This was the part he disliked.
Not because of danger.
Because it involved trust.
Trust was heavier than full beskar armor.
He entered five names into a secure message group.
Kento Marek.
Mallie.
Baylan Skoll.
Serra Keto.
Etain Tur-Mukan.
Young Jedi.
Not rebels.
Not traitors.
Not enemies of the Order.
All of them loved the Jedi.
They were his closest friends.
That was part of why they were frustrated.
A person could disagree with family without wanting family destroyed.
Will understood that better now than ever.
Kento Marek was direct, stubborn, intensely loyal, and increasingly dissatisfied with the Council's willingness to treat clones as military resources before people.
Mallie was more measured, but she possessed the dangerous quality of being able to identify hypocrisy without becoming loud about it.
Will suspected something between those two already, though neither was remotely subtle when observed by anyone with functioning eyes.
Baylan Skoll had been asking harder questions since their conversation in the Temple.
Not anti-Jedi questions.
Questions about whether the Order could remain what it had been while commanding armies.
Serra Keto inherited Cin Drallig's intolerance for sloppy thought and possessed enough confidence to tell older Masters when their plans were stupid—politely, usually.
Etain Tur-Mukan saw the clones differently than most Jedi did.
Perhaps too differently, according to some.
Will trusted that.
He recorded the first message.
His unmodified voice this time.
"Kento. Mallie. Baylan. Serra. Etain."
He paused.
"This message is encrypted and set to corrupt itself after playback. Do not respond through standard Temple channels."
Deren glanced over from the forge.
Will ignored him.
"I'm back on Coruscant. The Council does not know."
He could practically imagine five separate expressions of disbelief.
"I am not asking you to commit treason against the Republic. I am asking for help investigating something the Council is moving too slowly on."
Not entirely true.
He was definitely asking for assistance committing several serious violations of Temple security.
Semantics.
"I need access to an internal Temple detention level. Quiet access. I need to speak with a prisoner who may know more about a threat to the Republic and the clones than the Council realizes."
Still not naming Grievous.
Not through holo.
"I am not carrying Jedi equipment. I am operating under disguise. Nobody needs and will not know you helped."
He paused again.
"If you think I'm out of line, don't answer. I won't hold it against you."
He would not manipulate friends into following him.
"If you're willing, reply only with your status and whether you're currently on Coruscant."
He sent it.
Then waited.
Deren hammered metal in the background.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The sound became almost meditative.
Ten minutes later the first response appeared.
KENTO MAREK — OFFWORLD.
A message followed.
'You're an idiot.
Whatever this is, don't die before you explain it.'
Will smiled.
Second.
MALLIE — OFFWORLD, MEDICAL ESCORT ASSIGNMENT.
Her message was less charitable.
'If this involves something Cin would have beaten you for doing, reconsider it twice.
Then do whatever you were going to do anyway.'
Will laughed softly.
Deren looked over.
"Good news?"
"My friends know me too well."
Third.
ETAIN TUR-MUKAN — DEPLOYED.
'Can't assist physically.
I trust your judgment, but please remember that believing you are right does not make you right.
Come back alive.'
That one stayed with him longer.
He read it twice.
Then the fourth came.
SERRA KETO — JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT.
The message opened.
Serra appeared in a small holographic projection, dark hair tied back, training tunic visible.
She stared at him for several seconds without speaking.
Then,
'Will.'
A pause.
'What the hell are you doing?'
He smiled despite himself.
Serra continued.
'You return to Coruscant without authorization, then send me an encrypted message asking for secret access to a secure Temple level.'
She rubbed her forehead.
'I grew up training beside you. I know exactly what this means. You have decided something is a good idea because it is technically possible.'
Not inaccurate.
Her expression softened slightly.
'I'm in the Temple. I can help with patrol timing. Maybe access records. Nothing that gets guards hurt.'
Will nodded to an image that could not see him.
'Deal.'
Her holo ended.
Fifth response.
BAYLAN SKOLL — TEMPLE, CORUSCANT.
Baylan's message was shorter.
'Tell me where.'
Will stared at it.
Of course.
Baylan didn't ask what.
Not yet.
Only where.
That almost worried Will more.
Deren finished the vibroblades slightly under three hours later.
They were beautiful in the practical way military equipment could be beautiful.
No decoration.
No unnecessary curvature.
Darkened grips.
Small guards protecting the hands.
Short blades designed primarily for close-quarters thrusting and controlled cuts.
When activated, high-frequency vibration traveled through the phrik composite, producing a low, almost inaudible hum.
Will tested one against an armored practice plate.
The blade bit deep.
"Nice," he said.
Deren looked offended.
"Nice?"
"Very nice."
"Better."
Will rotated the blade in his hand.
The balance was forward enough to cut but neutral enough for fencing.
He tried several movements slowly.
A thrust.
A disengage.
A wrist cut.
A reverse grip transition.
Deren watched.
"Those aren't knife movements."
"Makashi fundamentals."
"With a knife?"
"Geometry doesn't care what the weapon is."
Deren grunted.
"That is the most Jedi answer anyone has ever given while holding an illegal weapon."
Will deactivated the vibroblade.
"Can it stop a lightsaber?"
Deren grimaced.
"Stop? Not entirely."
"Survive contact?"
"Yes. Phrik matrix will resist plasma ordinary alloy, even because it has part of its composition made of cortosis alloy. But if you sit there trying to blade-lock a lightsaber, eventually the heat will overwhelm it, if, and I'm being serious, it is a two-phased lightsaber. Common ones will have a difficult time against your blades."
"Good."
"You expecting Jedi resistance?"
Will sheathed both weapons.
"I'm expecting emergencies, yes."
Deren pointed at him.
"You keep saying things that somehow make this worse."
By dawn, Will had everything.
Schematics.
Disguise.
Voice modulator.
Phrik/Cortosis-alloy vibroblades.
Forged identification from Spark identifying him as an independent Temple maintenance subcontractor named Tal Varen.
An encrypted scanner.
A portable slicing unit.
Four medical sedatives acquired legally enough that nobody would notice.
No blaster.
He had debated that choice.
A suppressed blaster would have been useful.
But blaster scoring inside the Temple created a level of alarm he wanted to avoid.
Vibroblades could disable without announcing violence to an entire corridor.
Besides, he was entering a Jedi facility.
If the operation reached the point where he needed a blaster rifle, the operation had already gone catastrophically wrong.
Will returned to his small safehouse room in the industrial sector and laid everything across a table.
The helmet stared back at him.
Anonymous.
Cold.
Nothing of Will Kriss visible.
He picked it up.
For several seconds he thought about what he was preparing to do.
Enter the Jedi Temple under false identity.
Circumvent internal security.
Reach the detention wing.
Interrogate General Grievous without authorization.
Potentially kill him.
The last part remained the hardest.
Grievous was a prisoner.
Not a battlefield opponent.
That distinction mattered to Will.
It had to.
Otherwise Dooku had been right about him.
The thought angered him.
He sat down slowly.
"If he knows nothing useful," Will whispered to himself, "you walk away."
Silence.
"If he knows something, you get it."
Still silence.
"And if he poses an immediate future threat…"
There.
That was where justification became dangerous.
He stopped himself.
No.
He would not write himself permission beforehand.
That was exactly how atrocities became reality.
He would interrogate Grievous.
He would evaluate what he learned.
And then he would decide.
Not before.
Will looked toward the window.
Coruscant morning had arrived behind industrial haze.
The Temple was barely visible in the distance.
He thought of Yoda.
Mace.
Obi-Wan.
Cin.
Siri.
He wondered which of them would understand.
Siri would probably slap him if she was alive.
Cin would make him explain his plan until every weakness became humiliatingly obvious.
Yoda—
Yoda worried him most.
Yoda knew his lineage.
Knew his tendencies.
Probably knew Will was increasingly frustrated even without being told.
Could Yoda sense what he was doing now?
Possibly.
Will hoped the old Master was busy.
That was a strange thing to hope.
Before approaching the Temple, Will needed to understand patrol patterns.
Serra handled that.
Her next message contained no sensitive text.
Just a series of innocuous timestamps disguised as training schedule updates.
Will recognized the code immediately.
They had used something similar as Initiates when arranging unauthorized midnight sparring sessions.
07:20 — south maintenance workers enter.
07:42 — Temple Guard inspection.
08:15 — prisoner wing supply transfer.
08:28 — shift overlap.
08:34 — six-minute surveillance diagnostic window.
Will stared at the final line.
Six minutes.
That was enough if everything went perfectly.
Which meant realistically it was not enough.
Baylan sent another message.
'There is an old meditation chamber beside the southern utility level. Rarely used since the war began.
Emergency access from there connects to service ducts.
I can make sure the chamber is empty.'
Useful.
Very useful.
Too useful.
Will transmitted back,
'No direct security tampering. I'm not putting you on record.'
Baylan's answer came immediately.
'You don't get to decide how much risk I accept.'
Will stared.
Then smiled grimly.
He liked Baylan. He is cool.
That might eventually become a problem.
Will spent the afternoon walking Coruscant.
Not sightseeing.
Learning.
He moved through lower commercial districts wearing the disguise without the helmet, just another traveler beneath a hood.
He watched criminals.
Security officers.
Bounty hunters.
Smugglers.
He noticed something he had never appreciated when living almost entirely within Jedi culture:
People outside the Order used space differently.
Jedi unconsciously respected personal boundaries because awareness allowed them to avoid collisions.
Soldiers occupied space tactically.
Criminals occupied it defensively.
In a crowded alley, a smuggler's back always found walls.
A bounty hunter positioned weapons away from grabbing hands.
Informants looked at reflections instead of faces.
Will practiced.
He sat in a crowded cantina with his back against a pillar.
Counted exits through glass reflections.
Kept one hand near his coat without touching the weapons.
Ordered caf.
It tasted terrible.
He drank it anyway.
A clone trooper off duty sat two tables away with three brothers from another battalion.
They were arguing over dejarik.
Will caught fragments.
"That move is bullshit."
"It's legal."
"Legal doesn't mean it isn't bullshit."
One clone glanced briefly toward Will.
Recognition almost happened.
Not of the face.
The posture.
Will deliberately slouched and took another drink.
The trooper looked away.
Close.
Too close.
His body still remembered being General Kriss even when his clothes did not.
He would have to do better.
That evening, Will returned to the clone bar where he had first met Yma.
He did not contact her.
Not tonight.
That felt colder than he liked, but bringing Yma anywhere near this operation would be unforgivable. She was a civilian. Whatever their relationship was becoming—and Will still did not have a useful word for it—it belonged outside this particular darkness.
The bar was loud.
Warm.
Familiar.
GAR soldiers filled booths and tables.
White armor appeared beneath jackets or beside seats.
Most clones here were off duty, though "off duty" in wartime usually meant armed and exhausted instead of armed and working.
The walls carried battalion patches, unofficial memorial plaques, old helmets, holograms, signatures.
A hand-painted sign above the bar read:
NO OFFICERS AFTER SECOND WARNING.
JEDI COUNT AS OFFICERS IF THEY ACT LIKE ASSHOLES.
Will loved that sign.
He entered without disguise.
Not fully.
Civilian clothing, no armor, hood down.
Enough clones recognized him that several heads turned.
Nobody saluted.
Exactly how he liked it here.
One clone at the bar raised a drink.
"Kriss."
Will nodded.
"Trooper."
"General?"
"Not tonight."
"Cool."
That was the end of it.
No questions.
Clone bars understood privacy differently than civilian establishments.
A man came in tired, drunk, maybe cried, maybe laughed too loudly, maybe stared at nothing for an hour.
No one asked unless he invited them.
War created its own etiquette.
Will selected a booth in the rear.
He ordered a Corellian ale.
Then opened his encrypted communicator under the table.
Serra.
Baylan.
The message would have to be careful.
Not because he mistrusted them.
Because Jedi communications were monitored.
He recorded only audio.
"Serra. Baylan."
He looked around.
A group of 715th clones erupted into laughter over something at the next table.
Good cover.
"I have the route."
He lowered his voice.
"I'm moving tomorrow night."
A pause.
"There's too much to explain over holo, and I'm not sending details through Temple networks."
Will glanced toward the bar.
The bartender, a scarred officer veteran with one mechanical hand, met his eyes briefly.
Then deliberately looked away.
"There's a GAR bar in Mid-Level District Eighty-Seven. You both know the place."
Serra absolutely did.
Baylan probably did not.
"Come separately. No robes. No Temple transports. Do not tell anyone where you're going."
Will hesitated.
Then added:
"And before either of you decides to be heroic—understand exactly what I'm asking. This operation is illegal. Not 'Council will be annoyed' illegal. If we get caught, I could lose my rank, my command, possibly my place in the Order."
He looked down at the communicator.
"You helping me could do the same to you."
The words felt heavier once spoken.
"I will not blame either of you for walking away."
Another pause.
"But I need people inside the Temple I trust."
Will leaned back.
Nearby, clones laughed and drank and argued over meaningless things because meaningless things were sometimes the only ones worth arguing about.
His thoughts returned briefly to Jackal asleep under medical observation aboard the Resolute Dawn.
A piece of technology inside his brain.
Millions more just like it.
Grievous.
Dooku.
Kamino.
Sidious.
A Republic whose hidden machinery seemed darker every time someone opened another panel.
Will's jaw tightened.
"I need answers," he finished quietly.
Then he ended with the place and hour.
"Tomorrow. Twenty-one hundred."
A tiny indicator blinked.
MESSAGE READY.
Will stared at it for perhaps five seconds.
Then pressed transmit.
The encrypted holomessage vanished into Coruscant's communications network, headed toward two young Jedi Knights inside the Temple he intended to break into.
Will set the communicator down.
He lifted the ale.
Took one slow drink.
And looked through the smoky air at the walls covered in clone insignias.
Tomorrow night, he would ask Serra Keto and Baylan Skoll to help him betray the rules of the institution that had raised all three of them.
Not to destroy it.
Not to weaken it.
But because somewhere along the line, Will had begun to believe there was a difference between obeying the Jedi Council…
…and protecting the Jedi Order.
Outside the bar, Coruscant stretched endlessly upward.
Far above the clone districts, five familiar spires stood against the artificial night.
The Temple.
His home.
His target.
And beneath his coat, two newly forged phrik vibroblades waited in silence.
Tomorrow, Tal Varen would enter the Jedi Temple.
Will Kriss would not.
At least, that was the plan.