“Sooo… is all this normal for you?” Ayna asked as they walked.

“The details are pretty unique,” Fredrak told her. “But ride the chaos is a good maxim to live by in my profession. And ultimately my end goal hasn’t changed. How are you doing?”

“Oh…”

Ayna looked this way and that.

“War, militia terrorism, downed warships… freaking magic… I’m a pickpocket. This is so outside of my area that it sort of becomes funny.”

They stopped at an intersection, as traffic passed them by. Ayna looked up yet again. The fleet had fully vanished from the sky. It was off into the lanes. The big battle that might settle the fate of the Nearer Fringe was in motion. Maybe that general knowledge was why people had that tense look about them.

“Then why are you still going along?” Fredrak asked. “I know I’m paying you well, but I never got the impression that you’re terribly concerned with that.”

“Mm.”

Ayna shifted her weight between feet as she wondered at that herself.

“Curiosity… I… look: I don’t have rules, or a code or a sense of duty or any of that. I just left Dwyyk in order to wander and see the galaxy. Just float, really. Mostly I just want to enjoy being alive. But I do feel I still owe Saketa for that whole thing on Wembella. And maybe doing just a little bit of good isn’t the worst use of my time. Just once.”

She scanned for opportunities in the crowd, just for practice, and laughed a little.

“I’ll steal something later on to weigh up against it. Something really shiny.”

“You do that,” he said, and looked amused in his controlled, possibly insincere fashion.

They crossed the street, and now they were almost there. Ayna could see the building up ahead, somehow ominous for its plainness and the city seal above the main door.

The night’s massacre was a very big item, rivalling the fleet. It was plastered on public screens and private holos, and loudly whispered about in what conversations Ayna actually understood. The Tanga’s really were an ancient part of Yvenna’s culture, like that poor bastard Chull had said, and their habitual brawling had escalated sharply recently with the rise of the Pure Blood nonsense. But a slaughter of dozens in a single night… that was a whole new deal.

She was no sociologist, but it honestly did feel like something was going to give soon. The Tanga warriors, the public, the law, and Purists stupid enough to make themselves public speakers for the ideaology were all outraged, each in different ways. And Ayna rather felt like being offworld by the time all this chemistry became combustible.

As soon as that Saketa business is settled, she promised herself. Then you’re off, girl.

They entered the public building together. She wasn’t entirely sure on what its official designation was. It seemed that every damn culture that had the time and numbers to really fester and make itself complicated split government and law enforcement into different little pieces, to make things difficult and annoying for restless people with sticky fingers.

What she did know was that the ground floor was open to the public for meeting with civil servants. And everything above that was off-limits.

They moved casually past offices and a guarded stairwell, and big, open space where people waited in several lines. It sounded like quite a few people were inquiring about property insurance, trying to sell in a hurry, wanting to leave the city for a while, and generally being a big bundle of nerves about the state of things. It wasn’t the sort of atmosphere to calm a person down, and Ayna emptied her lungs with a long, slow, slightly shivering exhale.

“On reflection, I rather wish I’d just asked you to lift that pad from Saketa,” Fredrak commented.

“On reflection, I rather doubt I would have had the guts for that one,” she replied.

“Aren’t you friends, of sorts?”

“Of sorts. And she’s scary and weird.”

“What would you say is the weirdest thing about all of this?”

“Weird-est? Her destroying an armoured pirate ship with a firm gesture, back on Wembella. Or the place of power thing, whatever the hell that actually is. Or finding my humble self caught up in some ancient war between good and evil. I mean, it’s crazy enough to just hear that that’s actually a thing. Seeing it play out before your eyes… look, this is all crazy as a dog with tails for legs.”

“I haven’t heard that one before,” Fredrak said.

“No, I think I just made it up.”

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“You have a nimble tongue, Ayna. Please nurture it.”

“You have my word on that!”

Her mood had improved a little. A bit of jabbering usually had that effect. And as they entered the bathroom hallway it occurred to her that maybe the man had picked up on that in their time together.

There were twelve bathrooms, and each one was for a single person. Fredrak slid his goggles back down and looked at the one down the end of the hallway and on their left. Presumably it was for the sake of one final assurance.

A man emerged from one of the rooms and they waited outside their chosen one until he’d vanished from sight. Then they entered together, and Fredrak locked the door behind them.

Ayna looked up at the ventilation cover, but she didn’t have much time to get stressed before he squeezed past her, got up on the toilet, and got to work with a small multitool.

“You really are sure this is going to work?” she asked.

“No beams, no alarms, no drones, no blocks,” he replied. “You have a clear route to the objective.”

“Seems downright reckless of them,” she said. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but…”

“This is hardly the heart of government,” Fredrak said. “And we are still on the Fringe. I doubt this would work back home. But I have learned a very valuable lesson throughout my career.”

“Do share.”

“People are always people. And get enough of them together and give them enough time, and they will inevitably make mistakes. From leaders to temp workers, somewhere someone is going to leave gaps and weak spots.”

“Handy for you, I suppose.”

“Well, not so much when it’s my own people messing up.”

He carefully removed the cover and set it aside.

“But let’s get this thing started.”

“Is it still empty?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied after a quick look with his goggles. “And I’ll be keeping an eye out.”

Ayna emptied her pockets and took off her shoes and socks. She didn’t need a boost to reach the ventilation, but things were about to get hard enough, so she accepted the help.

Human shortcomings aside, the ventilation system hadn’t been made by actual idiots. It wasn’t built with traversal in mind. It just hadn’t been built with Dwyyk physiology in mind either. Being short and slim might not have been enough to make it through. Flexible joints might not have done it either. But both in the same body was enough for an awkward and uncomfortable passage.

She could only take shallow breaths and had to move at a snail’s pace to avoid making noise, but she did make it to that spot where the shaft led upwards. Things got even more awkward, but she forced her arms up, put her bare palms on the metal, and gradually worked the rest of her body around the corner and upwards.

Progress was even slower, but she could handle slow. Evading the predators of Dwyyk wasn’t a matter of outrunning them, after all. So for the next few minutes it was just her body and her senses, with all else on hold.

Thought returned as she saw a bit of light come through another cover.

“Still clear?” she asked.

“Still clear,” he replied in her earpiece.

“Starting entry,” Ayna then said, and felt a bit proud of herself for sounding professional.

Getting the cover off from inside without causing visible damage was yet more straining work, but in time she lowered it carefully to the floor and slithered out like a snake.

“I’m in.”

It was a humble little place, with two chairs, a setup of multiple screens, and that was basically it. Here one could view footage from what public cameras the city did have. And from what Fredrak had gathered it normally wasn’t staffed.

Ayna looked around for a hiding place. It seemed doubtful that she would be able to make her way fully into the ventilation if Fredrak gave a sudden warning. And with such a small and humble interior her best bet would probably be to brace herself in one of the ceiling corners next to the door.

With a backup plan in place she got to work. One of Fredrak’s little hacking gizmos went into a slot on the console, and with that she had access.

“Sooo, what now? This isn’t the most monitored city, but it’s still home to millions.”

“It’s just a matter of narrowing it down,” he told her, using his calm professional voice. “And the right keywords. Start with female. Then red hair in a bob…”

Ayna typed.

“Fair skin. Grey eyes, Brown coat. Curved sword. A little over 180 centimetres tall. Circa seventy five kilos. There should be a function to mark those last two as estimates.”

Ayna looked the controls over, then hit the right button.

“There is.”

“Early thirties. And let’s see if ‘above average walking speed’ does anything. Now, millions of people or not, all this ought to narrow things down.”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

“Now put in… let’s say the first four hours after the massacre. Then check the results.”

He was right. It was a pretty effective narrowing.

“Got her!” Ayna whispered intensely. “She’s by a train yard in the northwest of the city. Well, was.”

“Good, good. Did she board?”

Ayna sped the recording up, and felt a really weird sensation creep up on her. This all felt like cheating somehow. This wasn’t proper sneaking that put her to the test in any way.

Oh, you silly snowgirl.

“Yes, she walks up to some kind of cargo train and peeks through a window. Then she completely vanishes into thin air. I think that means she went inside.”

Ayna used the console to access the city’s infonet.

“The plans are publicly accessible,” Ayna narrated. “This one… is scheduled to go far into the north, close to the edge of the continent, before it turns around.”

“Do you have the designation memorised?”

“Twelve-hundred, zero-zero, sixty-eight.”

“Okay, good. Now we just need to figure out where on the route she’s getting off. Come on back down. And remember to replace the cover.”