CO Majestic to Republic Command, Coruscant
On station and awaiting contact from Omega Squad. All communications from Teklet ground station have ceased. Separatist vessel has approached and is standing off our port bow at 50 kilometers-has not responded to signals but is believed to be a Techno Union armed transport. Will engage if vessel appears to be taking hostile action. Standing by.
“Turned out nice again,” Fi said, somewhere ahead of the column.
“You been on the stims?” Niner asked.
“I’m just naturally cheerful.”
“Well, I’m not, so where did you get it from?”
Niner didn’t like being tail on a patrol. He walked backward, scanning the trees, wondering why he was this close to Imbraani without a sign of enemy contact since Teklet.
Tinnies couldn’t climb trees. It was the wets he was worried about.
“Want to swap?” Fi said.
“I’m fine.”
“Just say the word.”
Fi was about a hundred meters ahead on point. Atin walked behind Guta-Nay. The Weequay was carrying a fair share of the ordnance and equipment they’d had to load on their backs since abandoning the excavator droid and the speeder bike.
“Very quiet, all things considered,” Atin said. “Mind if I send up a remote?”
“Might as well,” Niner said. “Patch visual through to all of us, will you?”
“We there yet?” Guta-Nay asked.
“Soon.” Niner hadn’t found the Weequay much use so far except as a pack animal. All he seemed to know about Hokan’s tactics was that they hurt bad. “Now, are you going to be cooperative, or am I going to return you to your boss?”
“You not do that! It cruel it is!”
“He’ll probably just give you a big kiss and tell you how much he’s missed you.”
“He gonna cut my—”
“I’m sure he will. Want to tell us more about the droids?”
“A hundred.”
“Any SBDs?”
“What?”
“Super—battle—droids.” Niner indicated the bulky shape with his arms held away from his sides, letting his rifle hang on its webbing. “Big ones.”
“No. I seen none, anyway.”
“I told you we should have slotted him,” Fi said. “Still, he carried a bit of gear. I suppose we ought to cut him some slack for that.”
The metallic sphere of the remote rose just above the level of the trees and shot off. Niner’s field of vision was interrupted in one quadrant by an aerial view of the countryside. As the remote tracked along paths and swooped among branches, it was clear that nobody was about, a worrying thing in itself. Then it dived in to show a familiar figure, stripped to the waist, bending over a makeshift basin of soapy water fashioned from a section of plastoid sheet.
The remote hovered above Darman as he reached for his rifle, not even raising his eyes.
“Sarge, is that you?”
Niner was staring into the business end of Darman’s Deece. It was a sobering close-up. “We’re about ten minutes from the RV Going anywhere nice?”
The rifle disappeared from the frame and Darman, half shaved, stared back. “Knock first, will you?”
“I’m glad to see you, too. Where’d you get that wound?”
“This one? Or this one?”
“The burn.”
“A Trandoshan. Ex-Trandoshan, actually. We’ve had a little more attention than we’d have liked.”
“The commander’s still in one piece?”
“Well, this bruise is hers. I’m teaching her to fight dirty. She’s catching on.”
“Get the kettle boiling, then. We’re bringing a guest.”
Darman’s faintly impatient expression dwindled below the remote and was replaced by an open view over Imbraani. It wasn’t so much a town as a scattering of farms, with a few knots of industrial-looking buildings dotted among them. Atin sent it higher and a few more remote buildings were visible.
“Take it in over the villa,” Niner said.
“Open country, Sarge. Bit risky.”
“I think we’ve lost the element of surprise.”
“Okay. Long lens, though.”
“What you doing?” Guta-Nay asked. To him, they were traveling in silence. He couldn’t hear the conversations going on between helmet comlinks. Niner switched channels with a couple of deliberate blinks.
“Taking a look at that villa.”
“I know about villa.”
“We all know about the villa.”
Niner would have welcomed a visit from Jinart. They hadn’t seen the shapeshifter since yesterday. She could have been anywhere, of course, but she hadn’t made herself visible. He hoped she hadn’t run into problems.
Five minutes now. No time at all. They’d be a squad again, and they’d have a commander. They’d be at the RV, and then they could rest up, eat, have a wash, and generally clear their heads. It began to feel like good news.
There was just the matter of taking Uthan and the nanovirus, then getting out in one piece.
* * *
Etain had almost grown used to thinking of Darman’s armored anonymity as a friendly face. Then three more exactly like him emerged from the trees and disturbed that fragile equilibrium.
And then they took their helmets off.
It was rude, she knew, but all she could do was stare, and she found herself slowly putting her hand to her mouth in an attempt to disguise her shock.
“Yes, sorry about the Weequay, Commander,” one of them said. He had Darman’s voice and Darman’s face. “He’s a bit ripe, I know. We’ll have him clean himself up.”
They were utterly identical, except for one with a terrible scar across his face. The other two seemed like different moods of the same man, one serious, one pleasantly calm and unconcerned. They were all staring at her.
“I can’t tell you apart,” she said.
“I’m CC—”
“No, you have proper names. I know you have names.”
“It’s—it’s not policy, Commander.”
Darman lowered his eyes. “It’s a private thing.”
“Everyone calls me Fi,” said the calm one, clearly not bothered by policy. “And this is Atin.”
“Niner,” the serious one said, and saluted. Etain couldn’t sense a great deal from either of them, but the scarred Atin exuded a sense of loss that was almost solid. She could feel its weight. She tried to concentrate on the Weequay. She didn’t need to tap into the Force to tell that he was terrified. He was bent over as if about to drop to his knees, staring up at her.
Weequay didn’t all look the same. She knew this one. He had chased her across a barq field. He was a rapist and a murderer, not that the descriptions set him apart from any other of Hokan’s thugs. She reached for her lightsaber.
“Whoa,” Darman said.
“Girlie?” Guta-Nay said.
“I’ll give you girlie,” she said, but Darman caught her arm and she was instantly ashamed of her reaction. Again, it was anger. It was what stood between her and making sense of her calling. She had to get the better of it. If Darman could exercise force without venom, then so could she.
“What’s he here for?” she asked, thumbing off the blade.
“We thought he might have useful information,” Niner said.
Etain was desperate to be useful. She felt as if she were only capable of performing conjuring tricks: enough skills to distract, but not enough to be a functioning soldier. She also wanted Darman to stop treating her as if she were merely in need of a little more instruction. She wanted him to tell her how much he despised all that potential power wasted on a girl with no discipline or focus. He wasn’t stupid. He had to be thinking that.
“What do we need to know, Niner?”
“How Hokan thinks, Commander.”
“Give me some time with him.”
Guta-Nay straightened up and took one step back, shaking his head. He was expecting Hokan-style treatment.
Fi chuckled. “Guta-Nay thinks you’re going to cut off his … er, braids, ma’am.”
Braids. She’d forgotten. She pulled a section of hair free of her collar, plaited it as fast as she could, and fumbled in her pocket for a piece of cord to fasten it. This is what you are. Live up to it, if only to justify Darman’s faith in you.
“We’re going to have a little chat,” she said. She let her braid fall back inside her collar. “Sit down … Guta-Nay.”
It wasn’t easy for him to settle down on the ground with his hands still tied, but Etain wasn’t taking any chances. He knelt and then fell sideways in an undignified sprawl. She hauled him into a sitting position and they sat outside the shelter in silence. She wanted him to calm down before she attempted to influence him.
A sudden clack of armor made her glance over her shoulder, and she was astonished to see Atin giving Darman an awkward hug, slapping him on the back. She caught Darman’s eye: he looked bewildered.
Whatever had given Atin his huge emotional burden had been slightly relieved by rinding Darman well. Then the two men parted as if nothing in particular had happened. Etain turned back to Guta-Nay, suddenly very aware that for all their calm manner and unnatural appearance, these soldiers were every bit as painfully human as she was.
Bred to fight.
A new doubt was growing in her. She shook it off and turned to Guta-Nay, who wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“You’re not afraid,” she said quietly, and visualized the gentle trickle of water from the fountain of her clan home on Coruscant. “You’re relaxed and you want to talk about Ghez Hokan.”
He certainly did.
“Haven’t seen Jinart?” Darman said.
“Not since yesterday.” Niner cleaned his armor. It didn’t matter how visible they were now, and he hated scruffy rig. Darman had stripped down his Deece and was wiping the ignition chamber more than it needed it. Fi wandered around the temporary camp, cradling his rifle, keeping watch.
“Well, whether she’s here or not, I think we go in sooner rather than later.”
“The villa or the facility?”
“Latest intel we have from Jinart indicates the villa.”
“But…”
“Yeah, but. I’d find it hard to walk away from a place I could defend, too. That villa’s nothing but firewood.” He put down the shoulder plate he was cleaning. “Show me that plan again.”
Darman clipped the DC-17 back together and reached into his belt for the holochart sphere. “She did okay to get this.”
“Our commander? Jinart seemed dismissive of her.”
“C’mon, Niner. She’s a Jedi. She’s an officer.”
“Well? What do you think?”
Darman rubbed the bridge of his nose. “She’s got a lot of fight in her.”
“And?”
“She’s … well, she’s not exactly Skirata. But she’s learning fast. And you should see the Jedi stuff she can do. There’s more to it than just the fighting skills.”
Niner occasionally had his doubts about nonclone officers. They all did. They never admitted it publicly, but Skirata had warned them, quietly, privately, that outside officers sometimes needed help, and while you always obeyed or ders, you needed to be able to make helpful interpretations if the officer was less than specific. Officers could unintentionally get you killed.
“Nobody’s Skirata,” Niner said. He was watching the commander discreetly. Whatever she had done to Guta-Nay had transformed him into a true conversationalist. She was actually looking bored, as if she’d been cornered by someone who really, really wanted to explain every engineering detail of a repeating blaster.
“You have to admit that’s quite a skill,” Darman said.
Niner tried not to think about it. It made him uneasy, not knowing how many of his actions were his own choice. He didn’t like the other conflicts she created in him, either. He had never been this close to a human female before, and he was relieved that she was emaciated, unkempt, and generally less than appealing. The proximity still made him feel edgy, though, and from the way Darman was looking at him, it seemed they shared the realization.
They both watched Guta-Nay unburdening himself to the commander until she seemed to tire of it and got up from her cross-legged position. She walked over and looked at both of them uncertainly.
“I’m sorry, Darman,” she said to Niner. Then she gave an embarrassed shrug. “Sorry. Of course—you’re Niner. I got a little detail out of him, but he isn’t the analytical type, I’m afraid. I can tell you that Hokan carries a Verpine shatter gun and a custom KYD-twenty-one blaster. He’s got a lot of Trandoshan equipment, and as far as any of the militia knew, there were no more than a hundred battle droids at the garrison. Hokan is also apparently something of a game player-he likes to bluff and double-bluff.”
Niner considered the information. “That’s useful, Commander. Thank you.”
“I was going to see if I could summon Jinart. She could i probably see what’s happening down there at the villa.”
“Can you do that?” Darman asked.
“I can sense her, when she wants me to. I’ll see if she can sense me.” She stared down at her boots. “And please don’t call me Commander. I haven’t earned the rank. Until I do—if I ever do—I’m Etain. Darman knows that, don’t you, Darman?”
He nodded. Niner didn’t feel comfortable with that. He liked to know who stood where in the hierarchy of things. “Whatever you say. Can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly.”
“Why did you say of course you’re Niner?”
She paused. “You feel different. All of you. You might look the same, but you’re not. I don’t normally identify individuals by their effect on the Force, but I can if I concentrate.”
“We seem different to you?”
“You know you are, surely. You know you’re Niner and he knows he’s Darman. You’re as self-aware as I am, as any other human.”
“Yes, but…”
“All beings are individuals, and their essence in the Force reflects that. The act of living makes us different, and in that way you’re like twins, only more so. Atin’s very different. What happened to him to make him so burdened?”
The answer stunned Niner. He was used to being a product. His squad and his sergeant had treated him like a man, but the Kaminoans certainly hadn’t. This was the first time that a Jedi, a commander, had confirmed the clone commandos’ intensely private suspicion that they were no less than normal men. It was no longer a secret dissent that had to be hidden.
“Atin was the only survivor of his first squad, then he was reassigned and lost all three brothers in action again,” Niner said. “He feels guilty.”
“Poor man,” she said. “Does he talk about it?”
“Not much.”
“Perhaps I could help him see he has nothing to feel guilty about. Just a little encouragement. Nothing like the influence I used on the Weequay, I promise.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“We have to look out for each other.”
Right then Niner didn’t care if she had less idea of guerrilla warfare than a mott. She possessed one fundamental element of leadership that you couldn’t teach in a lifetime: she cared about those she led.
She had earned her rank on the strength of that alone.
“Contact, five hundred meters,” Fi said.
The squad abandoned their impromptu meal of stewed dried meat and put their helmets back on. Etain was again surprised at how fast they moved. They were lying prone in the undergrowth, rifles trained, in the time it took her to turn and check where the Weequay was.
You’re not going to make a sound, Guta-Nay. You want to be totally silent.
He was. But she felt what was approaching. She scrambled into the bushes on her hands and knees and leaned close to Darman. “It’s Jinart,” she said. “Relax.”
Darman, Fi, and Atin sat back on their heels. Niner stayed prone, still lined up on his sights, and held his hand away from the trigger in a conspicuous gesture.
“Niner likes to be sure,” Darman said. “No offense.”
The grass shook visibly, and then a living oil slick flowed past the kneeling commandos. It seemed to be carrying something horrific in its black swirls. The slick resolved itself into Jinart’s natural form, and she had a huge lump of raw meat in her jaws. She laid it on the ground.
“I gave you plenty of warning,” Jinart said, staring at Niner. She sniffed the air and appeared to follow an invisible beacon with her long snout. Her gaze settled on Guta-Nay, dozing against a tree, bound hands in his lap. “What possessed you to collect that souvenir?”
“We thought he might come in handy,” Fi repeated.
“You can’t even eat Weequays,” Jinart said, and metamorphosed into her human form. “Better not let the creature see me for what I am, just in case. Have you eaten? Would you like some merlie?”
Fi took his helmet off and grinned. “We’ve got time for that, have we?”
“You might as well fight on a full stomach,” Jinart said. “You have a tough job on your hands.”
Fi picked up the leg of merlie and rinsed it with water from his bottle. “Dar, you got any of that dried fruit left?” He ejected the vibroblade from his knuckle plate and began cutting the leg into chunks. Etain wondered how he had developed his relentless good humor; she couldn’t imagine him shooting anyone. One thing she had discovered in the last few days was that professional soldiers were neither habitually angry nor violent.
They didn’t even talk tough. They were a mass of contradictions. They washed their clothing and they shaved and cooked and generally conducted themselves like well-behaved, well-educated Padawans. Then they went out and blew up installations and killed total strangers and cracked bad jokes. Etain was getting used to it, but slowly.
While Atin kept an eye on Guta-Nay, the rest of them sat listening to Jinart in the shelter.
“I have been observing,” she said. “Hokan has made much of reinforcing the Neimoidian villa under strict security, and he does indeed have most of his hundred droids there. The whole building is packed with explosives, most of them in the wine cellars. But he has also moved Uthan back to the installation.”
“Our fragrant Weequay friend was right about the double bluff, then,” Etain said.
Niner shrugged. “It’s what I’d do. Defend the strongest position.”
“So we go for the installation, then,” she said.
“We’ll have to deal with both targets. They’re only two or three kilometers apart. Once we start on the main facility, the droids from the villa will pop over for a visit in a matter of minutes.”
Etain rubbed her forehead. “If they followed the plans when they built the facility, then the only way in will probably be through the front door.”
Darman shrugged. “We can make our own doors. That’s what frame charges and water cuts are for.”
“Sorry?”
“We blow holes in the walls. But I’d rather avoid that if we’re dealing with hazardous materials. Don’t want to break any bottles, I reckon.”
“There isn’t even a fire exit. One door, no windows, no large ventilation shafts.”
“Doesn’t look like anyone enforces building regulations around here.” Darman shrugged. “Front door, walls, or drains. Walls would be best, but how we can get into position unnoticed is another matter.”
Niner looked at Darman as if waiting for a suggestion. “A split attack could divert them if it’s noisy enough.”
“Well, if Hokan’s been kind enough to load up the villa with things that go bang, it would be a shame for them to go to waste.” Darman studied the holochart plan of the villa. “They won’t fall for a droid bomb again, but we do have a lot of explosives we could introduce to the mix.”
“You make it sound as if it’s going to be relatively easy,” Etain said.
“No, it’s going to be hard. But that’s what we’re trained for.”
“I’d rather have you effecting rapid entry to the main facility,” Niner said.
“But we should place our own explosives inside the villa, in the cellars if we can,” Darman said. “A high-energy explosion will set off the rest of their charges. If we can place one, it’ll direct the blast upward, and if the droids are on top of the pile, it’ll solve that problem, too.”
“Okay, in real terms, there’s a layer of solid droid on top of the cellars. Can’t free-fall in. So it’s through the front door, the wall, or the drains. And the drains look like thirty-centimeter diameter.”
“Bore-bangs?” Fi said.
“They won’t drill far enough into the ground to penetrate the cellars, and they’re not powerful enough anyway.” Darman’s gaze was fixed on the holographic plan. “Although they might be if Atin modified them and packed in a bit of the thermal tape. I was saving it for the blast doors in the facility, but I could spare a meter. That’d be ample.”
“How about a remote?” Atin said. “If we can direct it into the building, that is. If you took out the recording components, you could pack in the thermal tape—about a couple of meters, easily.”
“They’ll be able to spot anything that’s flying.”
Jinart, in aged crone mode, looked from face to identical face. “What size is this device?”
Darman formed a fist. “About this big. I’ll show you one.”
“I could carry that to the villa, right to the walls, if you can direct it from there.”
Niner pointed into the shimmering image of the building. “Down the roof vent, which would put it in the main hall running front to back.”
“Or maybe along the main drain from this culvert about two hundred meters behind the house. I like that better.”
Etain joined in the communal ritual of staring at the holographic display as if an answer would eventually emerge on its own. “The only point in blowing up the villa is if you could hit as many droids with it as possible.”
“Then we have to convince them we’re going all out for the villa,” Niner said. “That means a feint of some sort, which would be fine if we had more men. But we don’t.”
Then Etain did have an idea, and it was one that she wasn’t proud of.
“How about sending Hokan a direct message?” she said. “What if Guta-Nay were to escape and tell him we were planning to attack the villa?”
“But he knows there are only four of us,” Darman said. “Sorry, five.”
“Six,” Jinart said sourly.
“We could convince the Weequay that we have another squad or two in the area,” Etain said. “At this point, he’ll believe anything I tell him. But I’ll be sending him to his death.”
Fi nodded. “Yeah, if Hokan skewers him without waiting to hear what he’s got to say, we’re stuffed.”
He was cheerfully, benignly callous. Etain was briefly appalled before letting the reality wash over her. Given the chance, Guta-Nay would have abused and killed her without a second thought. Aside from that, the squad’s target was effectively a weapons factory, a weapon that would kill millions of men just like Niner, Fi, and Atin. And Darman. If they didn’t kill, they would be killed.
It didn’t take her long to move from her reverence for all living things to thinking waste the Weequay. She wondered if that was the true nature of corruption.
“I’ll do my best to give him a good opening line,” Etain said.
“He’s scum,” Jinart said suddenly. “If his death can help remove the Trade Federation and all their minions from my world, then it is a cheap price to pay.”
My world? Etain obviously had the same thought as the commandos, because they all reacted, looking at the shape-shifter expectantly.
“We didn’t realize this was your homeworld,” Niner said.
“It is,” Jinart said. “I’m among the last of my kind. Various invaders have driven us from our habitat without even seeing us—and now I doubt they would have done any differently had they known we were here. Yes, we’ll help you rid this world of Neimoidians and every other hostile alien species that’s here. That’s our bargain with the Republic. You help us; we help you. That’s why we risk our lives. It is not for the greater glory of your cause.”
“Nobody told us,” Etain said. “I’m sorry. I can’t speak for the Republic, but we’ll do our best to see that they keep their word.”
“Mark that you do,” Jinart said. She indicated the commandos with a swing of her fine black head. “Like your young friends here, we are few, but we have no problem inflicting a great deal of damage.”
Etain could only nod. At least Jinart was brutally honest. Perhaps telepaths, deprived of secret thought, had no other style of interaction. The creature was staring at her, all unblinking orange eyes, and she could see for the first time that the four fangs protruding over the Gurlanin’s lower lip each ended in a double point.
“I’ll place scent marks around this camp,” Jinart said stiffly. “The gdans won’t bother you tonight.” She slipped away and merged with the land, leaving a trail of rustling noises as she moved through the bushes.
“Okay, let’s see what Guta-Nay can manage,” Niner said. “If we don’t see signs of movement toward the villa by midday tomorrow, we’ll go in anyway, and that’ll mean splitting the squad and taking both groups of droids. We really don’t want to do that if we can help it.”
“This has the makings of a diverting evening,” Fi said. “Anyone for supper?”
It was an elaborate charade, and the bizarre thing was that it needed no rehearsal. Guta-Nay was entirely unquestioning: Etain had begun to see him as a monstrous and sadistic child, unable to comprehend the feelings of others, or control his own. They sat around and ate the merlie stewed with dried kuvara, talking about leaving enough for the “other squad” when it showed up. They discussed in hushed tones about how “the villa” was their target. If this was the misinformation game, it was an easy one.
Even so, Etain definitely didn’t feel proud of her subterfuge when she cut the ties around the Weequay’s wrists, ostensibly an act of kindness so that he could eat. It was designed to send him to his death. At least she felt some relief that as soon as it was dark, and they made a show of turning their backs on him and being preoccupied, Guta-Nay would try to escape, and vindicate Jinart’s judgment that he was scum.
The decision still sat heavy on her.
Fi and Darman were asleep, judging by the position of their heads. It was impossible to tell with their helmets on, but they were sitting against a tree, chins resting on their breastplates and arms folded over the rifles clutched to their chests. She had no doubt that if she walked over to them, they’d wake and be on their feet in a second.
She glanced up. Niner was on watch, perched in the fork of a tree with one leg dangling, occasionally peering down his rifle scope at something.
“What can he see?” she asked.
Atin, cross-legged with an array of wires and detonators spread around him, looked up. He’d taken off the armor section that protected his backside and was using it as a convenient plate for components while he worked.
“Line of sight? Up to thirty kilometers in good viz. Connected to a remote ship system? Well, you name it, Com—sorry, Etain.” He pointed to his rifle, and then went on packing tight-coiled black and white ribbons of explosive into the remote. “Have a look through the Deece. Safety’s on, but don’t press anything.”
Etain shouldered the rifle. It was a lot lighter than it looked, and the view through the scope was startlingly vivid despite the failing light. She found it difficult to shut out the display that was superimposed on her field of vision. It narrowed the view to a tight focus on the target. “Is this what you see through that visor?”
“Sort of.”
“Can I try the helmet? I want to know what it’s like to be inside it.”
Atin gave her a dubious look and shrugged. “You won’t get all the readouts without the rest of the armor system, but you’ll see enough. It’s top shelf. They upgraded it just for this mission.”
She lifted the helmet and held it above her head, a bizarre coronation. As she lowered it into place, the feeling of confinement and stifling heat almost made her nauseous, but she steeled herself to tolerate it.
“Hot,” she said.
“It’s fine when it’s sealed to the rest of the suit,” Atin said. He got to his feet and loomed in her field of vision. “See the red light in the top corner?”
“Mm.”
“Look at it and blink twice, fast.”
She did. It unleashed chaos. All she could see now was a riot of lines and numbers and flashing symbols. She was aware of a normal view beyond it, but the rest of the data dancing before her eyes was overwhelming.
“That’s the HUD,” Atin said. “Heads-up display. Real life-saver. The proverbial eyes in your backside.”
“It’s distracting. How do you cope with it?”
“You get used to it fast. We’ve used these systems all our lives. You can filter the information out, like listening to a conversation in a crowd.”
Etain lifted the helmet off and inhaled cool evening air. “And you can communicate without any audible sound outside the helmet?”
“Yes, and even without Command and Control hearing us on certain frequencies. I don’t think ordinary troopers can do that, but we’re different.”
“Separate specialized training?”
“They’re trained from day one to be more obedient than us. And we’re more obedient than ARC troopers. They’re pretty well raw Jango.”
He was talking about himself as if he were a commodity. Etain found it uncomfortable: yes, these young men were odd because they were externally identical, but they were still individual men, and not exotic houseplants or strains of grain. She understood that the Republic faced desperate times. She just wondered how many desperate measures that could justify. Somehow it seemed an affront to the Force to do this to fellow humans, even if they seemed remarkably sanguine about it.
She handed him back his helmet. “We use you, don’t we, Atin? All of you.”
“No soldier has it easy.” He fumbled with a length of wire, clearly embarrassed, brow furrowed in mock concentration.
The fresh scar from cheek to chin was all the more shocking etched into fresh young skin, and not a battle-hardened, wrinkled face that indicated a full life. “But I like this job. What else would I do?”
It was a painfully good question. What would any of them do if they were discharged from the Grand Army? She reached out and squeezed his arm instinctively, but all she grasped was plastoid-alloy plate.
“I know what happened to you,” she said. She concentrated, a precision job: just enough to influence him to see what was true and reasonable, but not to make mockery of his natural grief. “What happened to your brothers wasn’t your fault. You’re a good soldier. Sometimes the odds are too far against you.”
He stared down at his boots. Eventually, he looked up and shrugged. “I’ll do my best to make sure this bunch stays alive, then.” There was little indication on his face that the gentle push toward acceptance had worked, but Etain felt less of a jagged tear in the Force around him. He might heal, in time.
And time was something none of the clone commandos would have. It made her ashamed.
“Can I help with anything?” Etain said.
“You could help me put some remote dets into these. I told Dar I’d finish them for him.” Atin indicated small packs of mining explosive, and handed her something that looked like a packet of steel toothpicks. “Slide these between the ribbon and the main charge. Makes any party go off with a bigger bang.”
“What are they?”
“IEDs,” he said. “Great for planting down drainage systems and air-conditioning ducts.”
“Not more acronyms.”
“Improvised explosive devices. Be sure you make them look neat. Dar’s fussy about his devices.”
It was a relatively simple but fiddly task: Etain was a quick learner. They sat in silent concentration, making bombs as casually as if they were shelling qana beans. This is how it happens, she thought. This is how you slide from peacekeeper to soldier to assassin.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Atin said, not looking up from the bomb in progress.
“Of course.”
“May I look at your lightsaber?”
Etain smiled. “Well, you’ve shown me yours, so it’s only fair I should show you mine.” She took out the hilt and held it up to him. He wiped his palms on his bodysuit and took the saber carefully. “That’s the dangerous end, and this is the control.”
He showed no inclination to activate it. He seemed absorbed by the hilt and its markings.
“Go on,” Etain said.
The lightsaber flared into blue light with a vzzmmm. Atin didn’t even flinch. He simply stared down the length of the blade and seemed to be checking it for true.
“It doesn’t feel like a weapon,” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
“I made it.”
That changed his expression. She had struck a chord with him, one builder of gadgets to another. “Now that is impressive.”
Etain enjoyed the respect. Being treated with deference as an officer made her squirm, but this felt good. So I think I’m pretty good at something. And someone else thinks I’m good at it, too. It was a boost that she sorely needed.
Atin thumbed off the blade and handed the hilt back to her with suitable reverence. “I’d still rather have plenty of distance between me and the enemy,” he said. “This is a close-in weapon.”
“Maybe I need to practice my more remote skills,” Etain said. “You never know when telekinesis might come in handy.”
They went on bundling explosives with ribbon charges and stacking the packages in a heap. She heard and felt Darman relieve Niner on watch: their respective presences ebbed and flowed, merging at one point as they crossed paths.
Through the night Etain alternated between dozing and checking on Guta-Nay. She was careful not to give him the idea that she was watching him, and instead concentrated on sensing whether he was still there, sitting in the lee of a tree with his knees drawn up to his chest. Sometimes he slept; she could feel the absence of mental activity, almost like sensing a plant. Other times he woke and felt more vivid and chaotic, like a predator.
It was getting light again. It had been a long and restless night.
And still Guta-Nay sat there. He’d made no attempt to escape.
Of course he won’t. Etain felt her stomach knotting. He’s terrified of Hokan. He wants to stay with us. We’re the good guys, the civilized guys.
Once again she was horrified by her ruthless and almost involuntary calculation of benefit against evil. She wandered past the shelter made of leaves, tarpaulin, and a camouflage net that seemed to be handmade. Niner, now clearly asleep, still wearing full armor, was curled up on his side, one arm folded under his head. Atin was reading his datapad; Fi was finishing the cold remains of the merlie stew. He glanced up at her and held out the mess tin.
“I’ll pass, thanks.” Fat had congealed in unappetizing yellow globules on the surface. It seemed soldiers could sleep anywhere and eat anything.
This couldn’t be a moral dilemma. It was obvious. These men had become her responsibility, both as an individual and as a Jedi: she owed it to them to see that they survived. She liked them. She cared what happened to them, and she wanted to see Atin live long enough to overcome his demons.
And she could do something that even they couldn’t.
“Guta-Nay,” she said, putting her hand on the Weequay’s shoulder. He opened his eyes. “Guta-Nay, you’re not afraid. You want to go to Ghez Hokan and tell him what you know. You want to offer him information about the Republic forces in exchange for your life. You want to tell him that they plan to attack the villa because they think the forces at the facility are a decoy.”
Guta-Nay stared past her for a moment, and then stood up. He picked his way through the bushes and headed east toward Imbraani.
Etain knew she had now taken a second life.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes screwed shut, and wondered what had happened to her, what Master Fulier would have thought had he been alive. Then she was aware of someone watching her.
She looked up. Darman, perched in the same fork of branches as Niner had been, stared down.
“It’s hard to send someone to their death,” she said, answering his silent question.
His expression was hidden behind the visor of his helmet. She didn’t need to call on any of her abilities as a Jedi to know what he was thinking: one day she would do the same to men like him. The realization caught her unawares.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
She doubted it.