Hard Contact

  News traveled fast. Fett was a source of pride among the remaining handful of Mandalorians in diaspora. Even if he fought for money, he was the best. Ankkit must have known perfectly well how much that comment would sting.

  Hokan was determined that the Neimoidian would see no evidence on his face to prove it. He’d certainly tried to keep that out of his mind when he was interrogating Fulier, much as he wanted to blame all Jedi for the humiliation of a cultural hero. He had to be clear why he was smashing the Jedi’s bones. Revenge was unprofessional.

  He took a careful breath. “Do you keep gdans as pets, Ankkit? I hear some offworlders do try.”

  “Gdans? No. Filthy little creatures. Most savage.”

  “But if you did keep one, and didn’t feed it well, would you be surprised if it bit you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Then feed me well.”

  Hokan turned and walked out without being dismissed, deliberately unbidden, and deliberately fast so that Ankkit couldn’t have the last word. He replaced his helmet and ran down the steps of the ludicrously extravagant villa.

  He didn’t care if Ankkit rented the whole planet out to Separatist scientists. They weren’t honorable enough to fight with real weapons, either: they got bugs to do their work for them. It was a disgrace. It was unnatural.

  Hokan felt in his blood-red jacket for the Jedi’s weapon. It didn’t look like much at all. And it was surprisingly easy to activate, even though he suspected that fully mastering it might be another matter. A humming blue shaft of light, vivid as day, shot out from the hilt. Hokan swept it scythe-style along a neatly clipped tarmul hedge, cutting its height in half.

  The lightsaber wasn’t bad for a soft Jedi weapon.

  Hokan suspected the lightsaber looked at odds with his traditional Mandalorian helmet and its distinctive T-shaped eye slit. But a warrior had to adapt.

  And Fulier had questions to answer.

  Docking Bay D-768, Fleet Support Air Station, Ord Mantell

  The Nar Shaddaa agri-utility crop sprayer on the pad looked as if only its rust was holding it together. It was, to use Jusik’s uncharacteristically colorful description, an old clunker.

  And—somehow—it was taking them to Qiilura. It wouldn’t attract much attention flying over farming country, unless, of course, it broke up in flight. This didn’t seem out of the question.

  “Well, they don’t build them like that anymore,” Fi said.

  “That’s because not even the Hutt Aviation Authority would certify this Narsh dirt-crate airworthy,” Niner said, straining to prevent his pack from bending him over backward. He was laden with nearly double the twenty-five-kilo weight he was used to carrying, along with a powered emergency chute. Niner had never actually come across the HAA, but he’d absorbed every scrap of intel read, seen, or heard in his life. “Anyway, all it has to do is get us down there.”

  “It’s making a noble sacrifice,” Jusik said, suddenly right behind them. He smiled and murmured dirt-crate to himself as if it amused him. Niner wondered for a moment if he’d broken protocol by using the phrase. “Are you certain you can do this? I could ask Master Zey if he would allow me to accompany you.”

  Niner wanted to laugh, but you didn’t laugh at a Jedi, especially one who seemed to care what happened to you. “We lost too many officers at Geonosis, sir. They can’t grow you to order.”

  The Padawan lowered his eyes for a second. “It’s considerate of you to think of me as an officer, Sergeant.”

  “You’re a commander now, sir. We won’t let you down. There’s nobody better prepared for this than us.”

  “This is your first special operation, isn’t it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “No sir. Not at all. The six P’s, sir. Proper Planning Prevents Pi … Inadequate Performance, sir.”

  Jusik appeared to be counting and then raised his eyebrows. “This is real, Sergeant.”

  Ah. For all their skills and wisdom, there were still some things that even Jedi didn’t know. Niner hesitated to lecture Jusik.

  Real. Oh yes, Niner knew what real was, all right.

  Padawan Bardan Jusik had certainly never seen the Killing House on Kamino. He’d never stormed the building, with its twisting corridors and innumerable flights of stairs; he didn’t know how many commandos died in training when the rounds were live and the terrorists—or whoever the directing staff were being that day—aimed to kill, and frequently did.

  He also had no idea what it was like spending four days lying prone in a scrape in the undergrowth on observation, rifle ready, urinating where you lay because you couldn’t move and give away your position. He had no idea how you learned to judge the amount of charge required for rapid entry to a building the hard way, because if you didn’t get it just right, in a hurry and under fire, it could blow your head clean off. Two-Eight had learned that way.

  Jusik didn’t know just how far and how long you could carry a wounded comrade when you had to. He probably didn’t even know how to perform an emergency field tracheotomy with a vibroblade and a clean length of fuel line.

  It wasn’t Jusik’s fault. He had far bigger issues to worry about. There was no reason for a Jedi commander to concern himself with the details of a clone commando’s life. But Niner thought he probably would, and he admired the Padawan all the more for that.

  “We’ll be fine, sir,” Niner said. “The training is quite realistic.”

  Inside the shabby Narsh vessel, the tanks had been stripped out, and the bulkheads lined with securing straps and stealth sheeting that would render the ship’s cargo invisible to any probe or scan.

  Niner realized that four men would be pretty cramped in there with packs and weapons. A couple of BlasTech E-Web repeating blasters were already stowed, and, at Atin’s request, two Trandoshan LJ-50 concussion rifles.

  Atin’s livid face wound was looking less alarming now, but he’d always have a scar: the bacta spray could fix plenty if you used it soon enough, but it couldn’t reverse scarring. He pulled himself through the open hatch with an APC array blaster in one hand and his DC-17 strapped across his chest, just about keeping his balance under the weight of his pack. Darman, acting as loadmaster, gave him a helpful leg up and eyed the blaster.

  “Got a thing for Trandoshan technology?” Darman asked.

  “This’ll deal with shields better than our E-Web,” Atin replied. “And the LJ-fifty is a nice backup when we take out the facility. Just in case. Republic doesn’t make all the best gear.”

  Niner wondered if Atin ever talked about anything but gear. His squad must have been a miserable bunch, with a miserable instructor. Clones might have looked utterly standardized to outsiders, but every squad was altered slightly by the cumulative effects of its experiences, including the influences of the individual trainers. Every commando battalion had its own nonclone instructor, and seemed to take on some of his—or her—unique characteristics and vocabulary.

  We learn, Niner thought. We learn fast, and unfortunately we learn everything. Like dirt-crate.

  Every squad developed its own dynamics, as well. It was part of their hardwired human biology. Put four men in a group, and soon you’d have a pecking order defined by the roles and foibles that accompanied them. Niner knew his, and he thought he knew Fi’s, and he was pretty sure he knew where Darman was heading. But Atin wasn’t sliding into place just yet.

  Fi had a Geonosian force pike. He hefted it and smiled.

  “Where’d you get that?” Atin asked, suddenly interested.

  “Souvenir of Geonosis,” Fi said, and winked. “Seemed a shame to waste it.” He flipped it over in his hand and twirled it, arm outstretched, missing Atin by a calculated handspan. He didn’t react. “You wouldn’t even need to use the power setting, would you? This thing’s heavy.” He brought it down in a slicing movement. “Wallop. That’ll make their eyes water.”

  “I don’t think I need any souvenirs of Ge
onosis,” Atin said. His tone was distinctly frosty. “Indelibly etched, you might say.”

  “Hey—”

  Niner cut in. “Chat later,” he said. “Shift it, people.”

  Niner already knew he would have his work cut out with Atin and wondered if anything would trigger his natural urge to be one of the squad. He also wondered about his apparent negativity. He’ll shake down, sooner or later. He’ll have to.

  Backing up to a convenient ledge on the port bulkhead, Niner unclipped his backpack. Forty-five kilos lighter, he eased between Fi and Atin, and peered into the cockpit.

  An R5 droid was at the controls. The unit was still fueling up the vessel from a droid bowser, burbling and whistling to itself. Niner leaned across to plug his datapad into the console to confirm the flight plan and synchronize it with the vessel’s actual path.

  The R5 didn’t take any notice. It would fly the route it was given.

  Improvising, thinking on his feet, making the most of the resources at hand, were all part of operating as a commando. But so was acquiring adequate intelligence. What they had wasn’t enough to plan a mission, and that meant they would either have to acquire it in the field, or fail. Niner didn’t want to fail Padawan Jusik. He ejected his datapad and edged back to the hatch, trying not to clip Fi or Atin.

  “Comm silence from the time you take off,” Jusik said, leaning through the open hatch. “The assault ship the Majestic is diverting to Qiilura, and will remain on station a parsec from the planet until she receives your request for extraction. Then gunships will be at your transmitted location within the hour.”

  Niner almost asked just how long the Majestic might wait, but he feared it would look as if he doubted his squad’s competence. He knew the answer: the ship would wait until Uthan was taken, even if that was several commando missions down the line. It wasn’t waiting for them.

  “We won’t keep the Majestic waiting,” Niner said.

  “Anything else you need?”

  Niner shook his head. “No, Commander.”

  Darman stood to one side of the ramp, like an honor guard, waiting for the Jedi to leave.

  “Very well,” Jusik said, looking hesitant, as if he wanted to walk away but thought better of it. “I hope to debrief you on your return.”

  Niner took that literally, although Jusik was looking at him as if it meant something else. It made sense for the Padawan commander to process whatever intel they might gain. Jusik turned and walked away, and Darman jumped inside. The hatch closed with a slight shudder, sending fine fragments of rusting metal to the deck.

  It only has to land, Niner thought.

  He switched on the holoprojection in his datapad and studied the three-dimensional flight path over fields, lakes, and forest. It was part real image, part simulation. Projected onto an existing chart, they were looking at an area thirty klicks north of a small town called Imbraani.

  A single-story building with shabby sheet-metal roofing—ringed by an incongruously well-cut expanse of grass—nestled in a plantation of kuvara trees. Some of the image was blurred, but it was the best resolution that a surveillance remote could manage at that distance above the planet. Specks—people—wandered around an encircling path.

  “It’s the capture alive bit that complicates matters,” Darman said, gazing at the image over Niner’s shoulder. “Or else we could just bomb it back into Hutt space.”

  “That’s why they created us,” Niner said. “For the complicated jobs.”

  He closed his eyes for a few moments to visualize the insertion: he saw it from takeoff to landing, smooth and planned, every detail, or as many details as their incomplete intel could furnish and his own experience of a hundred exercises could confirm.

  In this detached state, something occurred to him. He pictured Jusik’s face and his awkward, nervous shrugs. He realized what the Padawan had meant when he said he was hoping to debrief them personally on their return.

  He meant Good luck. He wanted them to survive.

  Niner, who had known for as long as he could remember that he was a soldier bred to die, found that intriguing.

  Gdans were about thirty centimeters long, fully grown, and it took a whole pack of them to bring down even a merlie calf. But at night—when they emerged from their warrens and hunted—the farmers locked their doors and stayed clear of the fields.

  It wasn’t so much their teeth that the locals feared. It was the deadly bacteria the animals carried; a minor scratch or a bite was almost always fatal. And Master Fulier had used their entire supply of bacta spray in administering first aid to villagers, so Etain was as housebound at night as any of her hosts.

  She could hear the little predators outside, squabbling and scrabbling. She sat cross-legged on the mattress and chewed on the thin-breads, almost hungry enough to gulp down the stew, but not that hungry. A few bacteria are good for your immune system, she thought. You’ve probably eaten worse without knowing.

  But she knew this time.

  Leaving the bowl where it stood, she rolled the holochart sphere over and over in her palms, running through all the possibilities for getting the information to the Jedi Council. Stow away in a transport—possible. Transmit the data from ground? No, all transmissions were tightly controlled by the Neimoidians; any other message traffic from Qiilura to Coruscant would draw instant attention. There was always the possibility of finding the right droid courier, but that was a long shot, and it might take so much time as to be useless.

  Perhaps she’d have to do the job herself.

  Lightsabers were superb weapons, but right now she needed an army. The realization that she had beaten the odds to obtain valuable information but was now unable to get it to those who needed it almost crushed her.

  “I’m not done yet,” she said aloud. But she feared that she was, at least for the night. Her eyelids felt heavy and she braced her elbows on her knees, letting her head rest in her hands.

  A good night’s sleep. She might have a better idea in the morning. Her eyes closed. Images of Coruscant, her clan practicing passing a ball by thought alone, a nice hot bath, food she trusted to be clean …

  Then, suddenly, every fiber in her body leapt at once. Heart pounding, Etain thought at first that she’d had one of those half dreams of falling that sometimes came when she was dozing off. But now she was fully awake and knew that she hadn’t.

  Something had changed. Something in the Force had been altered, and forever. She jumped to her feet, suddenly clear what it was; she needed no training or education to understand it. Every instinct coded in her genes cried out.

  Something—someone—was gone from the Force.

  “Master,” she said.

  She had suspected he was dead. Now she knew he was, and she knew it had happened right then. It was impossible not to wonder how and where, but she knew enough about the Neimoidians’ hired muscle and their techniques to guess.

  Ignoring the ever-present gdans, she went to the barn door and swung it open. It was an act of helplessness. There was nothing she could do, now or ever.

  Something rustled in the grass. It was a solitary something, and it sounded larger than a gdan. She noticed for the first time that the constant snuffling and squabbling of the gdan packs had stopped. They’d gone.

  Etain felt for her lightsaber, just in case.

  Loud squawking and a flurry of wings made her start. A disturbed flock of leatherbacks rose into the air and scattered in the darkness, trailing sparks of light from their scales. Through the Force, she detected only small creatures with simple desires, and a male merlie wandering along the fence, armed with such fearsome tusks that not even gdans would risk approaching him.

  She looked up at the night sky. It appeared unchanging, constant: but she knew it never was.

  They’re coming.

  She thought she heard the old woman’s voice. Putting it down to grief and lack of sleep, Etain stumbled back inside and barred the door.

  It was just another crop s
prayer hired to dress the fields after the barq harvest, laden with bug killers and soil enhancers and piloted by a droid. At least, that was what the Narsh crate’s transponder had told the Qiilura traffic controller, and judging by the absence of a missile up the tailpipe, he had believed it.

  Darman was still exploring the enhancements to his helmet and suit. “I used to think I wore this armor,” he said. “Now I think it’s wearing me.”

  “Yeah, they spent some credits upgrading this since last time,” Fi said. “Wow. Walking weapons system, eh?”

  “Two hundred klicks,” Atin said, without looking up from his datapad. He’d propped his helmet beside him with the tactical beam pointed up to provide some light in the closed bay. Darman couldn’t hear him over the noise of the vessel’s atmosphere engines, but he could lip-read easily enough. “Let’s hope everything works.”

  It was helmets on at one hundred klicks. The squad was prepared both for a controlled landing and an early bailout and free fall if they were picked up by Separatist ground units. Darman hoped their luck would hold. They were landing heavy, with more gear than they’d ever used in training, and they’d have to hit the drop zone accurately to avoid an impossible trek across country. Accurate, if they had to jump for it, meant high-altitude low-opening procedure. They could drift for fifty klicks if they opted for the safer, slower high-opening technique.

  Darman didn’t relish being defenseless in the air for that long.

  Niner was studying his datapad, balancing it on his right thigh. A three-dimensional shimmering holo of their flight path played out a handspan above it. He glanced up at Darman and gave him a silent thumbs-up: On course and on target. Darman returned the gesture.

  There was an art to loading up for a mission when carrying the firepower of a small army among four men. Darman had loaded his pack to capacity. The rest of his weapons and ordnance was in a second shockproof container that stood knee-high. The bowcaster—he loved that weapon—was strapped across his chest plate with jury-rigged webbing, to leave his hands free for the DC-17. He had an assortment of detonators, kept safely separate from the charges and other ordnance in the lower section. He was now so heavy even without the extra equipment that he had to bounce to get upright from a sitting position. He rehearsed standing a few times. It was tough. Fortunately, the squad would be inserted close to the target. He didn’t have to haul it far.