He did not need to be skilled in political maneuvering to understand that Angral ordering him into an unimportant role was a way of sending the clear message that he was out of favor. Angral had used him just long enough to ensure the success of the sacking of Coruscant, and now he was being edged aside in favor of Lord Adraas. In the span of a day he had gone from the conqueror of Coruscant to a second-tier Darth.

He glanced over at Eleena once more, wondering how much of it she understood.

She did not look at him, just continued to look out the viewport.

PEDESTRIANS THRONGED the misty street outside the casino. The smell of the lake was strong: dead fish, other organic decay. Zeerid swept the crowd with his eyes, seeking anyone else that struck him as suspicious. He saw twenty men in the crowded street who might have been eyeing him.

“I can’t make anyone in this crowd,” he said.

Two drunk Houks staggered by, shouting a song in their native tongue. A young Bothan revved his swoop engine and blasted into the air. Ubiquitous aircar taxis lined the street. Private aircars and a public speeder bus flew above them.

“Keep moving,” Aryn said. “No urgency, though.”

The spaceport occupied several blocks beginning across the street from them. Digital billboards affixed to its side played advertisements for everything from vacation homes to energy bars to debt relief counseling. Zeerid sympathized with that last.

Moving with forced casualness, they cut across the street, eliciting the honk of a signal horn and a raised fist, and headed for the nearest entrance to the spaceport.

“Don’t look back,” Aryn said. “They’re there.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

The doors to the spaceport opened. Baggage trams pulled by droids rolled through the doors, followed by a dozen or so recent arrivals of several different sentient species. The doors closing behind them cut short the pitches of the taxi drivers.

VRATH SAT ON A BENCH inside the spaceport, pressed between a female Rodian on his left and a male Ithorian on his right. The Ithorian smelled like leather and hummed a tune through his two mouths.

Vrath endured, and watched Zeerid and the woman enter the spaceport. Zeerid glanced around, suspicion in his eyes. But Vrath had spent years perfecting his own inconspicuousness, a skill invaluable to a sniper, and Zeerid’s eyes moved over and past him.

He whispered commands, the sound inaudible above the commotion of the spaceport. The implant in his jaw amplified the words and sent them to the earpieces of his team.

“He is wary. Keep your distance.”