Sacrifice

from comfortable in his brand-new lieutenant's rank insignia, gave Ben a nervous grin.

"Our source in Coronet confirms that Gejjen's rescheduled all his engagements for tomorrow," said Shevu. "It's on for sure."

"Timetable?"

"No outbound timings, but he expects to be back in time for a meeting by oh-eight-hundred the next day."

The displays on the walls showed two sets of charts and data: one was Coruscant, the other Corellia. Ben checked off the list of surveillance points—Omas's private residence, the security cams from the Senate offices, the handful of private landing pads nearest to both, and a tally of flight plans filed for Vulpter. The Corellian status board also showed recent flight plans logged with that planet as a destination.

"What if Omas breaks his journey somewhere, and doesn't fly straight to Vulpter?" Ben asked.

"That's where marrying it up with arrivals and flight plans for Vulpter helps." Lekauf pointed to a datapad on the table. "Check that out. Even if the flight doesn't originate from Coruscant, we can run checks to see what's arriving with Coruscant as its point of departure within that time window."

"The boring number-crunching stuff," said Girdun. "Don't worry, a computer's narrowing down the choices. Once we spot Omas moving—or even Gejjen—then we put a tail on them. Easier to tail Omas, but we might get a break from Gejjen."

"How?"

"We have an informant in the Corellian government building. This is the thing about information, Ben. It's not a case of finding a big X on a chart labeled the secret meeting is here. It's actually about assembling a lot of apparently routine stuff that's not secret at all and looking for the patterns."