The clone bar was loud enough to hide a conspiracy.
That was precisely why Will had chosen it.
Music rolled from old wall speakers in heavy percussion and brass distorted through equipment that had probably survived more deployments than some of the men drinking beneath it. Laughter came in sudden bursts. Sabacc cards slapped tabletops. Someone near the far wall was arguing passionately that a B1 battle droid could, under very specific circumstances, develop enough self-preservation instinct to qualify for Republic veteran benefits.
The opposing argument appeared to be:
"Not if I shoot the bastard twice."
The air smelled of fried protein, cheap Corellian liquor, warm plastoid, sweat, machine oil, and the fatigue shared by men who had spent too long wearing helmets designed by people who apparently believed comfort encouraged indiscipline.
Will sat in the rear booth with his back to the wall.
He wore nothing that marked him as a Jedi.
No cloak.
No armor.
No saber.
Dark trousers, gray shirt, worn civilian coat.
The two phrik-alloy vibroblades Deren Vol had forged rested beneath the coat, sheathed horizontally along the lower back where they would not print visibly against the fabric. The anonymous helmet with its voice modulator waited inside a plain equipment bag beneath the table.
For the moment, he was simply Will.
Which was probably the last time tonight he would be.
A half-empty glass sat before him.
He had not touched it in ten minutes.
Across the room, clone troopers came and went without paying any particular attention to him.
Or rather, they paid attention enough to deliberately ignore what he was doing.
There was a difference, and Will wouldn't complain.
The bartender—the clone veteran with the mechanical left hand—had recognized him immediately. He had also noticed the empty seats opposite Will, noticed the untouched second and third glasses placed there, and understood that the young General was waiting for people.
The clone had asked exactly one question.
"Trouble?"
Will had considered the answer.
"Probably."
The bartender had nodded.
"Back booths don't have audio pickups."
Then he had walked away.
No curiosity.
No request for details.
No salute.
Clone discretion was built differently from Jedi discretion. Jedi secrecy tended to be solemn, procedural, wrapped in rules and permissions.
Clones simply understood that sometimes a brother needed you to shut the hell up.
Will respected that.
He liked the clones more most of the time anyway.
At 20:57, the door opened.
He felt Baylan before he saw him.
Not because Baylan was careless in the Force.
Quite the opposite.
The young Knight had one of those presences that was difficult to explain: controlled, heavy without being oppressive, like the feeling of standing near a stone wall that had been there longer than you and had no intention of moving.
Baylan entered dressed almost appropriately.
Almost.
Civilian trousers.
Dark boots.
Long coat.
No visible saber.
But the man still walked like a Jedi.
Straight spine.
Measured pace.
Eyes taking in everything while pretending they were not.
Will watched him cross half the room and thought:
You're terrible at this.
Baylan reached the booth.
Will nodded toward the chair.
"You look like a Jedi trying to dress like a bounty hunter."
Baylan sat.
"You look like a bounty hunter trying to insult me."
"Good. Improvement already."
Baylan's mouth twitched.
He glanced around the bar.
"Clones?"
"Mostly."
"They know who you are."
"Yeah."
"And they're ignoring us."
"Also yeah."
Baylan considered that.
"Cool."
"More than most of the places in the Temple."
The door opened again.
Serra Keto came through like someone who had spent the last fifteen minutes actively reminding herself not to look suspicious.
She was better than Baylan.
Not by much.
Her dark hair had been pulled back into an ordinary knot instead of the clean Temple style she normally preferred. She wore fitted black trousers, boots, and a short brown jacket over a plain shirt. No robes.
But unlike Baylan, Serra had remembered to slouch slightly.
The problem was she looked like someone deliberately slouching.
Will didn't try to hide his grin.
Serra saw him.
Her eyes narrowed immediately.
She reached the table and dropped into the remaining seat.
"If you laugh," she said, "I'm leaving."
Will lost the fight and laughed anyway.
"Both of you are terrible criminals."
Baylan looked offended.
Serra leaned across the table.
"And you're currently planning to illegally infiltrate the Jedi Temple, so perhaps don't get smug."
"Fair."
Baylan looked between them.
"You two have done this before."
"Not this," Serra said.
Will added, "We used to sneak into training halls after curfew."
"That is very different."
"You've never trained under Cin Drallig after he caught you breaking curfew."
Baylan considered that.
"Point taken."
The bartender appeared beside them.
He placed two drinks down without asking.
Serra looked at hers.
"I didn't order this."
"He knows."
The bartender moved away.
Baylan watched him go.
"Does everyone here communicate entirely through implication?"
"Only the intelligent ones."
Serra gave Will a hard look.
"All right. Enough bullshit."
There it was.
Serra had inherited Cin Drallig's ability to take a room full of nonsense and cut through it in one sentence.
She lowered her voice.
"What exactly are you doing?"
Will did not answer immediately.
He reached beneath the table and activated a small device.
A low-power audio disruptor came alive, producing no audible sound but scrambling focused pickup devices within roughly two meters.
Baylan noticed.
Serra did too.
Her expression became more serious.
Will leaned forward.
"Grievous is still being held in the Temple."
Neither reacted visibly.
Both already knew that.
"What you don't know," Will continued, "is that Bad Company found something aboard the Resolute Dawn."
Serra's eyes sharpened.
"What?"
Will hesitated.
This was the moment.
Up until now, only Bad Company, Anakin, and perhaps soon Ahsoka knew what Jackal's implant might represent.
Telling Serra and Baylan widened the circle.
Every wider circle increased risk.
But he needed them to understand why.
"Clone inhibitor chips."
Baylan frowned.
Serra blinked.
"Inhibitor what?"
"Neural implants. All clones have them."
That wiped the irritation from Serra's face.
Baylan became perfectly still.
Will explained.
Not everything.
But enough.
Kaminoan implantation.
Behavioral regulation claims.
Limited awareness among clone medics and some senior officers.
The Council knowing of their existence but apparently accepting Kaminoan explanations without a complete independent analysis.
Jackal's abnormal neural activity.
The surgical removal.
Spark discovering encrypted operational architecture inside something supposedly intended for behavioral stabilization.
By the end, Serra had forgotten her drink entirely.
Baylan's jaw had tightened.
"You're certain?" Baylan asked.
"I watched Doc pull one out of Jackal's skull."
Serra stared down at the tabletop.
"Millions of clones…"
"Yes."
"All with the same implant."
"As far as we know."
"And the Council knows?"
"They know the chips exist."
"That wasn't what I asked."
Will looked at her.
"No. I don't know what they know about the deeper programming."
Serra slowly leaned back.
"That is…"
She stopped.
Apparently "catastrophically irresponsible" required too many syllables.
Baylan supplied:
"Madness."
"Yeah," Will said.
Baylan's eyes hardened. "And you think Grievous knows something."
"I think Grievous has been Dooku's supreme military commander for years. He deals directly with Separatist leadership. He knew Kaminoan operations well enough to attack Kamino. He knows Dooku's strategic thinking. If there's a contingency involving the clone army made by the CIS…"
"He might have heard about it," Baylan finished.
"Exactly."
Serra's gaze narrowed.
"And if he doesn't cooperate?"
Will said nothing.
Serra stared.
"Will."
He met her eyes.
She understood.
Her expression changed immediately.
"No."
Baylan looked between them.
"What?"
Serra's voice went low.
"He's considering killing Grievous."
Baylan looked at Will.
Will exhaled.
"If Grievous represents an ongoing strategic threat and possesses no further intelligence value—"
"Don't," Serra snapped.
Not loudly.
But sharp enough that the trooper at the adjacent booth glanced over, saw who was involved, and immediately became intensely interested in his cards.
Serra leaned forward.
"Do not turn this into Republic intelligence language."
Will's jaw tightened.
"He's responsible for thousands of deaths."
"That isn't the point."
"He escapes every time."
"Still not the point."
"He has murdered Jedi, clones, civilians—"
"And right now," Serra interrupted, "he is a prisoner."
Will looked away.
That silence said more than anything.
Baylan studied him carefully.
"You haven't decided."
"No."
"That means much about your character."
Serra looked at Baylan.
"You're encouraging him?"
"No."
Baylan remained calm.
"I am saying there is a difference between a man who has already decided to execute a prisoner and a man frightened that he might have to make that choice."
Serra's eyes moved back to Will.
That hit him harder than expected.
He looked down at his hands.
"I don't want to kill him in a cell."
"Good," Serra said immediately.
"But I'm also tired of watching people like Grievous escape because we're so concerned with proving we're better than them that we forget there are corpses piling up behind us."
Serra softened by perhaps one degree.
"I know."
"No," Will said. "You know academically. You almost never need to left the Temple. I've seen clones die because some command decision decided eliminating a Separatist commander was too politically messy. I've watched men get replaced like damaged equipment."
"So have I."
"Then you understand why I'm going."
"I understand why you're angry."
"That's not what I'm feeling."
"No," Serra said. "It isn't."
The music shifted around them.
Someone shouted in triumph over a sabacc hand.
The bartender broke up an argument by threatening to eject both participants through an actual window.
Their booth remained an island.
Baylan took his glass but did not drink.
"What do you need from us?"
Serra shot him an annoyed look.
"Baylan."
"What? He's going regardless."
Serra opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Will said nothing.
That was the brutal truth.
She knew him too well to pretend otherwise.
Finally Serra sighed.
"Damn you."
"I've heard that a lot lately."
"What do you need?"
Will reached into his coat and placed a tiny projection puck between them.
He activated it.
A rough three-dimensional section of the Jedi Temple appeared, scaled small enough to fit over the table.
The lower southern portion glowed.
"Maintenance entrance here."
He pointed.
"Contractor route into an old utility level. My forged identification should get me through the outer service gate."
"Should?" Serra asked.
"I'm optimistic."
"That is not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
The hologram shifted.
"From there, I use this cooling conduit."
Baylan leaned closer.
"That's barely a meter wide."
"Eighty-eight centimeters at the narrowest section."
Serra stared at him.
"You measured it."
"I like breathing."
"That does explain some things."
Will traced the route.
"The conduit intersects an abandoned meditation chamber Baylan mentioned. That gets me inside the Temple proper without crossing public corridors."
Baylan nodded.
"The chamber hasn't been used regularly since the eastern meditation wing was expanded."
"From there, Serra's patrol schedule gives me a window to reach a service lift behind the restricted archive level."
Serra pointed at the holo.
"You cannot use that lift directly. It requires Temple identification."
"I'm not using the lift."
She paused.
"What?"
Will expanded the schematic.
Beside the lift shaft ran a maintenance crawlway.
Serra closed her eyes.
"You're climbing down the outside of a prison-level turbolift shaft."
"Technically the inside of the shaft."
"That does not improve the sentence."
Baylan looked impressed.
"How far?"
"Twenty-seven meters."
"And if the lift moves?"
"I avoid it."
Serra stared at him.
"Brilliant."
"Thank you."
"I was insulting you."
"I accepted it as praise."
She looked like she wanted to hit him.
For a moment, Will felt fifteen again.
Then he continued.
"The dangerous-prisoner wing has three security layers. Outer Temple Guards. Internal automated monitoring. Cell-specific controls."
"Grievous will have additional security," Baylan said.
"Absolutely."
"Magnetic restraints?"
"Likely."
"Force barriers?"
"Possibly not. He isn't Force-sensitive."
"Blast shielding."
"Definitely."
Serra pointed toward a corridor.
"This checkpoint will have two Temple Guards minimum."
"I'm bypassing it through maintenance."
"Camera?"
"Looped locally."
"How?"
Will produced a small slicer.
Serra stared.
"Where did you get that?"
"Spark."
"Of course."
Baylan's expression flickered with faint amusement.
"And us?"
"Serra, I need the surveillance diagnostic at 08:34 to actually happen tomorrow."
Her face tightened.
"It already happens."
"I need it to last about ninety seconds longer."
"That is much harder."
"I know."
"You're asking me to interfere with Temple security logs."
"Yes."
Serra leaned back.
"This is the sort of thing Cin would throw both of us through a wall for."
Will smiled faintly.
"Only after making us explain why our footwork was bad."
Serra tried not to smile.
Failed.
Then caught herself.
"Asshole."
"Baylan."
He turned.
"I need the meditation chamber empty from 08:20 until 08:40."
"I can reserve it."
"Under your name?"
"No."
Good answer.
Baylan continued.
"There's a Padawan meditation rotation scheduled nearby. I can move them to the western gardens on the pretext of combat-focus exercises."
"That buys space."
"And cover."
Will nodded.
"Exactly."
Serra looked between them.
"You've both become disturbingly comfortable with this."
Baylan's response was calm.
"I'm not comfortable at all."
That silenced her.
Baylan looked at Will.
"I'm helping because the question about those chips deserves an answer. Not because I agree with what you might do to Grievous."
"Understood."
"If you execute him simply because he is dangerous…"
"I know."
"No." Baylan leaned closer. "I need you to hear me."
Will met his eyes.
"If you kill him because you decide rules no longer apply to enemies you hate, you will not be protecting the Order from corruption. You will be practicing your own."
Will stayed still.
Those words sounded almost like something Yoda would say.
Except Baylan delivered them without mysticism.
Just warning.
"I hear you."
Baylan nodded.
Serra added quietly:
"And if we think you've gone too far…"
Will looked at her.
"We stop you."
There was no hesitation.
Serra had trained under Cin Drallig.
If she said it, she meant it.
Will nodded slowly.
"Fair."
That apparently satisfied her.
Barely.
The meeting lasted another hour.
They discussed contingencies.
What happened if Will's false identity failed at the outer gate.
What happened if a Temple Guard recognized his gait.
What happened if Grievous screamed.
That possibility was particularly unpleasant.
"Can you silence the cell?" Baylan asked.
"Local environmental controls include sound isolation."
"And if he triggers an alarm?"
"I disable his control panel before opening the door."
Serra stared.
"You've really thought this through."
"I've had a long flight."
"What happens if Windu walks through the corridor?"
"I surrender."
Immediately.
That answer surprised both of them.
Will shrugged.
"I'm not fighting a Master known for his prowess to do this."
Serra nodded approvingly.
"At least one portion of your brain is functioning."
"What if another Knight recognizes you?" Baylan asked.
"I leave."
"No violence?"
"No physical violence."
Serra caught the qualification.
"And Civilian Guards?"
"I'm not hurting Civilian Guards either."
"What about security droids?"
Will smiled.
"They're fucked."
Baylan almost laughed into his glass.
Serra did not.
But her mouth twitched.
At 22:13, Baylan left first.
He paid for his drink even though the bartender refused payment twice.
That made Will trust him more for some reason.
Serra remained.
She waited until Baylan disappeared through the door.
Then looked at Will.
"What?"
Will knew that tone.
"Nothing."
"Bullshit."
"Serra—"
"You came back from Naboo different."
Will looked away.
She lowered her voice.
"Dooku got inside your head."
"No."
"He said something."
How the hell—
Then Will remembered who Serra's master had been.
Cin taught observation before offense.
"What did he say?"
Will hesitated.
Then:
"He told me the galaxy needed more Jedi like me."
Serra's expression hardened.
"That's not praise."
"I know."
"He wants you questioning the Order."
"I was already questioning the Order."
"That's why it works."
Will looked at her.
Serra leaned forward.
"Dooku does not need you to become Sith tomorrow. He just needs you to start thinking your judgment is always more important than everyone else's."
Will was silent.
"And then," she continued, "one day you stop asking for help."
That hurt because tonight existed specifically because he had asked for help.
Serra saw the thought.
"Good," she said.
"What?"
"You asked us."
Will frowned.
"That means you haven't crossed that line yet."
"Comforting."
"It should be."
She stood.
Then before leaving, Serra reached across and squeezed his shoulder once.
Not romantic.
Not dramatic.
Something closer to sibling affection.
"Come out of this still you."
Will looked up at her.
"I'll try."
She shook her head.
"No. Do."
Then she left.
Will sat alone for another twelve minutes.
Then the bartender came over.
"You planning something stupid?"
Will looked at him.
"Why does everyone keep asking that?"
The clone shrugged.
"You have a face."
"What kind of face?"
"Stupid-plan face."
Will laughed quietly.
The bartender collected the untouched glasses from Baylan and Serra.
"You need anything?"
"No."
The clone nodded.
Then paused.
"Whatever you're doing…"
Will waited.
"Don't make our brothers pay for it."
That killed the humor immediately.
Will met his eyes.
"I won't."
The clone accepted that.
"Then I didn't see shit."
At 06:40 the next morning, Will Kriss disappeared.
Tal Varen replaced him.
The transformation began inside a public refresher unit four transit districts from the Temple.
Dark flexible armor first.
Trousers.
Reinforced boots.
Gray coat.
Gloves.
Vibroblades.
The blades sat inverted along his ribs now, hidden behind internal coat panels for easier access while crawling.
Slicer.
Forged ident-chip.
Two sedative injectors.
Comlink set to receive only.
No outgoing signal unless manually enabled.
Finally the helmet.
Will raised it.
For one second, his reflection looked back from the narrow amber visor.
Then he put it on.
The seal closed around his neck.
His breathing became louder.
The HUD activated.
He touched the voice modulator.
"Test."
A stranger answered.
Older.
Rough.
Mechanical.
Tal Varen.
Will stared into the mirror.
Nothing recognizable remained.
Good.
He left.
The first stage was not infiltration.
The best infiltrators understood that infiltrating started only after someone believed you belonged.
Will rode public transit.
That was deliberate.
No mysterious speeder.
No private route.
No suspicious parking record.
He boarded a maintenance line with actual workers heading toward government districts. He stood among electricians, sanitation crews, droid technicians, and structural inspectors.
Nobody looked at him twice.
He carried a compact equipment case containing legitimate maintenance tools purchased yesterday.
The illegal equipment remained on his body.
His heartbeat stayed steady.
Not Jedi-steady.
That would be noticeable if anyone sensitive happened to look.
He deliberately let his shoulders tighten when inspections approached.
Let his breathing change.
Normal nervousness.
A working man entering a Jedi facility had reason to be nervous.
He reached the Temple service approach at 07:48.
The Jedi Temple looked different from the maintenance entrance.
No grand steps.
No statues.
No ceremonial doors.
Just utility bays underneath the massive complex, where transport carts arrived with food, replacement components, cleaning supplies, medical stock, power cells, and the thousands of mundane things required to keep spiritual enlightenment functioning.
It almost made Will laugh.
He had lived here his entire life and had barely seen this side of it.
The first checkpoint consisted of one civilian security officer and two Temple service droids.
No Jedi.
Good.
The officer held out a hand.
"Identification."
Will passed the forged chip.
The man scanned it.
A yellow light appeared.
Will's heart kicked once.
The officer frowned.
"Contractor file is old."
Will let Tal Varen sound tired.
"Yeah. Haven't worked Temple contract in eighteen months."
The officer checked again.
"Work assignment?"
"Cooling diagnostic. South auxiliary."
"Order number?"
Will gave it.
Spark had generated the order around an actual maintenance request.
The officer pulled it up.
Green.
"Helmet."
Will paused.
"Problem?"
"Remove it for facial verification."
There it was.
First serious obstacle.
Will had planned three options.
None were excellent.
He sighed theatrically.
"Respirator seal's integrated."
The officer looked annoyed.
"I need your face."
Will deliberately turned his head toward the utility bay where visible vapor drifted from several coolant pipes.
"Doctor says I breathe untreated converter exhaust again, my lungs get another week of bacta."
The officer stared.
"Then why work industrial cooling?"
Will shrugged.
"Because it pays rent."
The security officer considered the eternal conflict between regulation and not wanting to deal with paperwork.
Paperwork won.
"Biometric glove print."
Will placed his gloved hand on the reader.
The glove's false-print mesh transmitted Tal Varen's stored profile.
Green.
The officer handed back the chip.
"Keep the respirator on."
"Was planning to."
Will walked through.
Only once the door closed behind him did he let himself breathe normally.
One layer.
The south utility sector smelled exactly as remembered: warm stone, cleaning solvent, cool filtered air.
Home.
That was dangerous.
Every instinct wanted to relax.
He could not.
Tal Varen had never been here.
Will walked with the maintenance case in one hand and followed route markers instead of memory.
That was important.
People who knew a building never looked at signs.
He did.
A service droid rolled past.
"Good morning. Please maintain right-side pedestrian flow."
Will stepped right.
"Thanks."
The droid continued.
He reached the first maintenance junction at 08:03.
Pek's schematic was accurate.
A panel behind three coolant regulators revealed a narrow service conduit.
Will checked the corridor.
Empty.
He opened the maintenance case, removed a diagnostic tool, and pretended to inspect the regulator while his other hand accessed the hidden locking mechanism.
Click.
Panel loose.
He waited.
Thirty seconds.
A pair of actual Temple maintenance workers approached from the far end.
Will kept working.
They passed.
One nodded.
Will nodded back.
Then the corridor emptied again.
He opened the panel.
Darkness.
Will slipped inside.
The panel closed behind him.
And Tal Varen ceased belonging anywhere at all.
The conduit was miserable.
Eighty-eight centimeters had sounded larger on a schematic.
It was not.
Will crawled sideways through warm metal, shoulders brushing conduit walls, knees scraping insulation mesh. Cooling pipes ran beneath him and vibrated constantly, turning the entire crawlspace into an enormous low-frequency instrument.
The helmet helped.
Thermal vision showed hotter structural sections.
Range sensors mapped the darkness.
He moved slowly.
Not because he could not move faster.
Because ducts carried sound.
Every knee placed carefully.
Every glove avoiding loose brackets.
Every equipment buckle taped earlier specifically to prevent clicking.
This was the difference between someone who knew stealth and someone who merely tried to be quiet.
Bounty hunters often depended on gadgets.
Cloaking fields.
Sound dampeners.
Scanner masking.
Will had those tools available.
He deliberately used almost none.
Technology failed.
Habits did not.
Even Piell had taught him that.
If you need a device to disappear, Padawan, then the device is the one doing the hiding.
Will remembered being fourteen, exhausted and soaked during some miserable field exercise, Piell standing three meters away asking him why his breathing sounded like a wounded bantha.
Will had hated him for three minutes of him speaking.
But respected him more for being right.
He reached the first vertical intersection.
A maintenance grille above revealed part of a Temple corridor.
He listened before looking.
Footsteps.
Soft.
Measured.
Two.
Padawan and Knight, judging by cadence.
The Knight was speaking.
"…General Krell has taken command temporarily."
Umbara.
Will became very still.
The second voice—young, probably Padawan—answered:
"I heard the 501st took the airbase."
"At significant cost."
The footsteps slowed.
Will held his breath instinctively.
"Skywalker's absence is unusual."
"So are wars, Padawan."
They moved on.
Will remained motionless for ten more seconds.
Then resumed.
The timing made him think of Anakin aboard the Resolute Dawn, deliberately exaggerating injuries while Ahsoka presumably wondered why her master had suddenly become terrible at pretending not to be terrible at lying.
Meanwhile the 501st was on Umbara without him.
Under Pong Krell.
Will had met Krell twice.
He had not liked either encounter.
Something about the Besalisk Master's attitude toward clones had bothered him.
Numbers.
Assets.
Units.
Will hated those words when used too often about living men.
He shoved the concern aside.
Different battlefield.
Different mission.
One fire at a time.
At 08:19 he reached Baylan's meditation chamber.
The vent grille was old.
Three screws.
One partially stripped.
Will removed them slowly, catching each before it could fall.
He lowered the grille.
Listened.
Nothing.
Then dropped quietly onto the stone floor.
The room was dark except for filtered morning light through narrow translucent panels.
Small.
Circular.
Simple.
He had been in here once as a child.
That realization struck unexpectedly.
Siri Tachi had brought him.
He remembered being perhaps eight, angry because another Initiate had embarrassed him during saber drills.
Siri had sat exactly there—
Will looked toward the far wall.
Yes.
There.
Cross-legged.
Telling him that humiliation only hurt when pride insisted everybody had been watching.
He had argued that everybody had been watching.
She had laughed.
Now he stood in the same room disguised as a criminal breaking into the Temple to interrogate General Grievous.
Life had become strange.
A small indicator flashed inside his HUD.
Baylan.
One encrypted text line:
Clear. Ten minutes.
Will replied with no words.
One confirmation pulse.
Then moved.
He opened the chamber door by three centimeters.
Looked left.
Right.
Empty corridor.
He stepped out.
From this point onward, every minute mattered.
This was no longer service infrastructure.
This was the Jedi Temple proper.
His home knew how he moved.
That thought had haunted him during planning.
There were thousands of Jedi in the galaxy, but Temple residents learned each other subconsciously. A familiar silhouette. A familiar gait. How someone turned corners.
So Will changed again.
Tal Varen's gait vanished.
Something else replaced it.
Smaller steps.
Left leg carrying slightly more weight.
Shoulders rounded.
Head moving more frequently.
A man uncertain in sacred surroundings.
The helmet concealed everything else.
He crossed the first hallway.
A Temple Guard appeared at the far intersection.
Saber pike clipped vertically behind one shoulder.
Mask expressionless.
Will's pulse accelerated.
The Guard stopped.
Will continued walking.
Stopping would be suspicious.
The Guard watched him approach.
Will held the maintenance case visibly.
Ten meters.
Seven.
Five.
The Guard spoke.
"Your assigned work area?"
Will's modified voice answered.
"South coolant auxiliary. Route Cresh-Seven."
The Guard looked toward the direction Will had come from.
"That route does not normally cross this corridor."
Will deliberately hesitated.
Good workers sometimes got lost.
"I was redirected around a pressure lock."
The Guard remained motionless.
Will could feel him in the Force.
Not actively probing.
But aware.
Jedi Guards were not ordinary security personnel.
They did not need scanners to know something felt wrong.
Will allowed mild irritation to rise.
Real irritation.
Directed not at the Guard but at the situation.
Emotions created noise.
Noise would hide his real intentions.
The Guard tilted his head.
"Identification."
Will produced the chip.
The Guard scanned it.
Green.
Spark deserved inappropriate praise.
The Guard handed it back.
"Return through the eastern utility stairs. This level is restricted."
Will nodded.
"Understood."
He turned.
Walked away.
Did not rush.
Did not look back.
At the next intersection, he took the eastern stairs—
Exactly as instructed.
Then exited them one level down and entered the maintenance route that brought him back toward his original objective.
Obeying first was sometimes the best way to disobey effectively.
At 08:31 Serra's contribution began.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That was why it was excellent.
A surveillance node near the restricted archive level entered standard diagnostics.
Camera three froze for half a second.
Restarted.
Camera four recalibrated.
Then camera five.
A normal automated sequence.
Except this morning, because Serra had quietly inserted an additional equipment verification request through a legitimate training-security ticket, the diagnostic loop took longer.
Ninety-three seconds longer.
Will's HUD displayed Spark's passive timer.
02:23 TOTAL WINDOW
Plenty.
If you were good.
Will was.
He opened the service panel beside the turbolift.
The maintenance crawlway beyond dropped vertically.
He secured the maintenance case to his back.
Then climbed inside.
The shaft smelled of lubricant and ionized metal.
The turbolift machinery vibrated a meter away through the wall.
Twenty-seven meters down.
He descended using structural braces rather than the service ladder wherever possible.
Feet.
Hands.
Breathe.
Listen.
He was halfway down when the entire shaft changed pitch.
Lift incoming.
Will froze.
The vibration increased.
He checked range.
Car traveling upward.
Passing his level in approximately eight seconds.
He pressed his body into a recessed maintenance niche barely deep enough for the helmet.
The lift screamed upward beside him.
Not actually loud.
But from inside the shaft, the displaced air and machinery sounded enormous.
The passing car created a pressure wave that tugged his coat.
He remained still.
Three seconds.
Gone.
Will continued down.
At the bottom he reached a horizontal maintenance shelf above the restricted detention wing.
The diagnostic timer ended.
Surveillance returned.
Now he was operating without Serra's blind spot.
From here, improvisation.
The dangerous-prisoner wing was quieter than the rest of the Temple.
Not peaceful.
Quiet.
Those were different.
The walls were thicker.
Doors heavier.
Lighting lower.
Security visible without being theatrical.
This was where the Jedi kept beings too dangerous for normal Republic custody.
Most cells were empty.
Grievous occupied the deepest one.
Will emerged through a service hatch inside an utility alcove behind the main corridor.
He crouched.
Thermal scan.
Two humanoids outside the next checkpoint.
Temple Guards.
One security droid.
No way around all three through the hallway.
He checked the schematic.
Ventilation.
Too narrow beyond this point.
Power maintenance tunnel.
Possible.
He opened another panel.
Crawled six meters.
Stopped above the security droid's maintenance recess.
The droid stood directly below.
Will smiled inside the helmet.
Finally.
Something he was allowed to hurt.
He opened the access panel silently and lowered himself behind it.
One hand clamped over the droid's optical cluster.
The other drove a vibroblade into the processor seam behind its neck.
The phrik blade activated.
A tiny hum.
Metal parted.
The droid twitched once.
Will caught it before it hit the floor.
Lowered it gently.
"Sorry."
He accessed its control panel.
Security identification.
Local patrol permissions.
Useful.
Spark had prepared a device that copied the droid's authentication signature.
Will attached it.
Green light.
He dragged the disabled droid into the recess and climbed back into the maintenance route.
Thirty seconds later the prison system believed its internal security droid was conducting a routine patrol.
Will used its credentials to unlock the next service door.
Not the cells.
Never the cells.
But enough.
He slipped behind the checkpoint without the Guards ever seeing or sensing him.
Now Grievous was twenty meters away.
Will could feel him before hearing him.
Not through the Force directly.
Grievous had no conventional Force sensitivity.
But violence left presence.
And the cyborg General possessed enough violence to fill a Jedi outpost.
A mechanical cough echoed faintly down the corridor.
Then metallic claws shifting against flooring.
Will stopped behind a corner.
His heartbeat was steady.
He drew both vibroblades.
Activated neither.
The cell door stood at the far end.
Two additional monitoring nodes.
Will approached the first.
Attached slicer.
Seven seconds.
Loop.
Second.
Nine seconds.
Loop.
Local cell alarm panel.
More difficult.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
The slicer flashed yellow.
Will frowned.
Come on.
Forty-one.
Green.
He exhaled.
Sound isolation controls appeared on his HUD.
He activated them.
The cell became acoustically sealed.
Next he disabled Grievous's internal alarm control.
Then locked the corridor doors behind him.
Not permanently.
He was not trying to trap Jedi Guards in an emergency.
Just enough that opening them required manual override.
He checked the time.
08:38.
Two minutes behind ideal.
Still acceptable.
Will stood before the cell.
For the first time since starting the operation, he felt fear clearly.
Not fear of Grievous.
Fear of himself.
This was the threshold.
Everything before had been preparation.
Illegal access.
Disguise.
Deception.
Security bypass.
Serious crimes, certainly.
But reversible ones.
Whatever happened inside could become something else.
He remembered Serra:
Come out of this still you.
Baylan:
If you kill him because you decide rules no longer apply to enemies you hate, you will not be protecting the Order from corruption.
Will closed his eyes behind the helmet.
Then thought of Jackal.
The chip.
Millions of clones.
The Kaminoans.
Dooku.
Sidious.
Grievous attacking Kamino.
The unanswered question of how many secret instructions might be buried inside living men.
He opened his eyes.
The amber visor reflected the cell's lock.
No retreat now.
He slid one phrik vibroblade back into its sheath.
Kept the other in his right hand.
Not activated.
He entered the stolen security code.
The lock turned green.
Heavy mechanisms engaged behind the wall.
Inside, something stopped moving.
Grievous had heard it.
Of course he had.
The cell door began to separate.
Slowly.
Thick reinforced plates retracting sideways with a low mechanical grind.
Darkness appeared first.
Then the faint outline of enormous clawed feet.
Metal legs.
A hunched torso.
Two yellow reptilian eyes igniting within shadow.
General Grievous rose to his full height.
Even disarmed and imprisoned, he made the cell seem too small.
His voice emerged in that familiar ruined growl, followed by one harsh mechanical cough.
"You are not one of the Guards."
Will stepped through.
The door closed behind him.
His helmet's voice modulator transformed his answer into the voice of a stranger.
"No."
Grievous's eyes narrowed.
"Bounty hunter?"
Will tilted his head.
"Something like that."
The lock sealed behind him with a final metallic clunk.
And for the first time since returning to Coruscant, Will Kriss stood completely alone with the Supreme Commander of the Separatist Droid Army.
No Council.
No witnesses.
No lightsaber.
No rules except the ones he chose to keep.
Grievous's claws flexed.
Will activated the phrik vibroblade.
A low metallic hum filled the cell.
The interrogation was about to begin.