Fingering her unlit weapon, the woman stopped and studied Rusher’s face. “You work for Daiman. I’ve seen you before—in his palace.”
Rusher stared. “I can’t imagine how.”
“No, you probably can’t,” she said. Watching the lines of students moving up the ramps into Diligence, she gestured for the Sullustan girl to step to her side. “These people are from Daiman’s territory. He brought them here.”
“I know.”
“Well, now you can take them out of here,” she said. “Before they get killed.”
“I sympathize. But we’re only here to provide fire support against Odion,” Rusher said, straightening. Would Daiman really send someone to test him in the middle of a war? He wasn’t going to get caught. “He doesn’t bring us here to evac civilians.”
“You don’t look like you’re providing fire support. You look like you’re leaving.” The woman gestured beyond the throng, where the remaining soldiers of Ripper Battalion were breaking down its artillery pieces. Turning back, she approached Rusher. Boot-to-boot with him, she looked urgently into his eyes. “Look, take them out anyway. You already know: if he approves, Daiman will tell you it was his intention all along.”
Rusher blinked. She’s met Daiman all right. The woman was barely half his age, maybe a little older. What was she doing out here? She wasn’t one of Daiman’s people, not dressed this way. And worried about the kids?
Can she actually be a Jedi?
Kerra stepped away to where the Sullustan was helping the smallest refugees toward the cargo ramp. Seemingly satisfied with their movement, she looked back to Rusher. “Look, if you don’t want me aboard, I’ll stay.” She shot a glance toward the ascending crowd. “Just get them away from here.”
A screeching sound from high above preempted Rusher’s response. Through roiling clouds now beginning to spill their polluted rain, those outside Diligence saw ever-darkening shadows. Several shadows. Rusher’s shoulders sagged. “Now what? This place is busier than a spaceport!”
“You’re not wrong,” Kerra said, pointing up.
Two huge warships pierced the clouds, descending toward opposite ends of the crater. Rusher recognized one as part of Daiman’s attack force; the other sported an Odionite symbol. Separated by mere kilometers, the two vessels hovered over the crater. Facing each other—and waiting. “That … doesn’t look like air support.”
“No,” Kerra said, biting her lip. “Something has changed.”
“Not changed enough.” Looking fruitlessly for his helmet, Rusher reached into his pocket for his spare comlink. “Novallo, are we in shape to move?”
His foulmouthed engineer responded with several epithets regarding the new guests in the accessways.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Light her up.” He turned to Zeller. “Push everyone into the barracks and tell them to hunker down.”
Rusher turned back to see Kerra kneeling next to the Sullustan. “Don’t worry, Tan. This man will take you out of here.” She grasped the girl’s tiny hands. “I’ll find a way out of here, too.”
“Yeah, kid. Don’t worry. She will,” Rusher said. Tossing his cane up the ramp, he scooped up Tan and addressed his remaining ground crew. “Forget the equipment. Get these stragglers on!”
Kerra lingered outside, watching the general and his tearful, writhing cargo disappear up the ramp. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to look at the new arrivals setting down in the crater.
“What are you gawking at?” Rusher stood on the ramp. “I said you’d find a way. You might be suicidal like an Odionite, but you sure don’t work for Daiman.” He pointed. “Come on. Carry someone!”
Narsk looked at the descending Sith vessels and smiled. He had made his call, as ordered—and they’d heard his message all right. Now events had been set in motion; the Battle of Gazzari would end far differently than either Odion or Daiman had imagined.
After the past couple of weeks, it was nice to be the puppeteer for a change.
Making his way to one of Odion’s transports, he cast his eye across the rainy battlefield. So many lives. So much material. The corpses and wreckage would just be another layer in the ooze soon. He was overjoyed to be leaving. It would be a simple matter to get back to Sword of Ieldis.
But that would end his sojourn here. He’d studied the schematics of Odion’s flagship while aboard, earlier. Once back aboard it, a one-person, hyperspace-capable fighter would be within easy reach.
And then, to his real master’s side.
CHAPTER TEN
“Something’s wrong!”
There were actually quite a lot of things wrong, from Kerra’s standpoint on the “bridge” of Diligence. For a warship, the command deck looked ridiculous. She’d been joking outside about the main fuselage resembling a commercial liner. Now, inside, she could see that was exactly what it was. Posh bridge chairs bore the emblems of a cruise line from the Republic colonies; judging from them, Diligence’s crew compartment had evidently begun life as Vichary Telk out of Devaron. How had it wound up out here, toting artillery for Sith?
But that wasn’t the problem that had caused her to open her mouth for the first time since reaching orbit. Standing on plush carpet long since beaten into submission by combat boots, Kerra studied the conflagration raging outside the viewport. Odion’s hulking capital ships vied with Daiman’s smaller destroyers and snub-fighter fleets for control of Gazzari; from the number of flaming derelicts, the battle had been raging for some time. And judging from the near hits Diligence had experienced during the ascent, it was clear neither side was yet willing to yield a cubic meter of space to the transit of the other.
So why had the two big cruisers, the ones that had arrived while Diligence was loading, been allowed to descend earlier, unmolested?
During liftoff, she’d gone to one of the lower viewports hoping to see the results of Daiman’s duel with Odion, postponed by her destruction of the Death Spiral. Instead, she’d seen the lone Odionite and Daimanate cruisers settling closer to the surface, with no one taking a shot at either. And she’d seen none of the telltale signs of the final, fraternal showdown.
Kerra walked down the soft steps to the railed-off command pit. The place was ludicrous. No tactical setup here; the bridge was designed so tourists could walk around the perimeter of the deck and look out to space—or down to observe the captain and his crew doing their work, like figures in a museum display. She found Rusher there, leaning over a crewmate and looking generally dumbfounded. “Captain, something’s wrong!”
“Yes, it is,” Rusher said. “I’m a brigadier.” Without asking her pardon, Rusher pushed past Kerra to another command station. “The zoo’s closed. Visit when we’re not being pursued.”
“Pursued?” The design of the ship made it impossible to see aft from the bridge, and Kerra hadn’t noticed anything resembling a tactical map. “You mean, by Odion?”
“I mean, by everyone,” Rusher said, looking up at her. Lit by the screens below, he looked older than she’d remembered. “Odion’s people think we’re with Daiman. Which we were—only Daiman wasn’t expecting us to pull out, so the ships he’s brought in don’t know what we are,” he said. He flipped sweat from his short mop of auburn hair. “There isn’t exactly anyone running traffic control right now.”
“They just took out Remorseless,” his Mon Cal navigator reported.
“See?” The general winced. “It’s not just us. That was an infantry carrier. All the irregs coming off the ridge are getting it.”
Kerra walked back up the steps to the huge observation window on the starboard side. The battle was dazzling, almost too much for the human mind to process. Vichary Telk’s tourists had never seen a sight like this from here. With Diligence weaving, it was difficult to find a steady point of reference. Except for one …
“Wait,” she said. Squinting, Kerra saw a small flotilla of ships hanging in the nebula near Gazzari’s sun. “Who’s that over there?”
“Lord Bac
tra’s people,” Rusher said, looking back over the displays. “They delivered the arxeum. The, uh, former arxeum.”
“And Odion’s ignoring them?”
Rusher turned to face her. “I don’t give history lessons, you know.” Behind, someone on his crew muffled a chuckle. Rusher looked back and sneered. “Not right now, anyway.”
Kerra ruminated. What she saw squared with what she knew from Republic intel: Bactra dealt with both brothers. Whatever deal he and Daiman had, he’d be unlikely to get involved in the fight—and they would likewise steer clear of him. That was it! “Make for over there,” Kerra said, pointing to Bactra’s forces. “Maybe we can hide among the neutrals.”
“Maybe they’ll adopt us and take us home,” Rusher said, rolling his eyes. He threw up his hands. “Do it,” he instructed his helmswoman.
Diligence quaked, lurching to the right so quickly that Kerra had to steady herself against the window. Listening to the metallic groan as the ship yawed, she looked down at the colossal cross-shaped cargo lander that served as the ship’s right foot and wondered whether it would stay attached. Any shipwright in the Republic would call this slapdash.
The navigator spoke. “We’re made, Brigadier!”
Rusher looked up to see blue laserfire zinging past the port window. A second later orange fire arced past the viewport on the Kerra’s side. “Who’s got us?”
The Mon Cal looked up. “They both have, sir.” Several of Odion’s and Daiman’s ships had broken off to follow them toward the nebula.
“Rear turret?”
“Damaged in the shelling, sir.”
Rusher shrugged and walked up the steps. “Won’t be long now,” he said, looking down. Bactra’s ships were up ahead, tantalizingly close—but they’d never get there at this rate. Diligence didn’t have the speed or shields to survive an engagement.
“This is crazy!” Confronting Rusher, Kerra waved toward the window behind her. Another ray lit the space outside. “You can fight! This ship’s bristling with weapons!”
“This ship’s weapons are on pallets in the hold, lady,” Rusher said, glaring. Grabbing her arm, he turned her abruptly to face outside. “Those gun barrels out there are just cargo—and half of them are gone.”
Kerra’s face fell as she looked where he was pointing.
“Our aft gun’s out. That leaves us with a couple of fixed rock-crumblers that fire forward,” he said. A barrage echoed through the ship, causing Rusher to reach for a vertical support. “They’ve got us. We slow for a second to turn around—”
Kerra looked blankly down at the control pit. There had to be something she could do—but her mind, usually crackling with ideas, failed to produce. Looking back, she saw the brigadier. Arms crossed, Rusher leaned against the column and stared out the window at the rest of his ship. The laser blasts were coming closer now, mirroring off the shine on the window.
“Thanks. For … for getting us this far,” she said.
He didn’t look back. “Sorry we couldn’t get your kids clear.”
Kerra started to step toward the window. “They’re not exactly my kids—”
Kerr-rraannng! The view outside the window abruptly changed, laserfire and nebulosities becoming black steel and screaming red lights. Diligence rocked violently, knocking both Kerra and Rusher backward from the bulkhead.
“They hit us!”
“No,” Rusher said, scrambling to his feet, looking up at his ceiling. “They bumped us!”
Kerra joined him back at the viewport. Odion’s dark gunships soared by on the right, barely clearing Diligence’s body. To the left, Daiman’s tri-pronged pursuit fighters jetted past. Firing away—firing ahead.
“They’re not targeting us,” Kerra said. “They’re shooting at Bactra’s ships!”
Rusher’s jaw dropped. Ahead, in the nebula, two of Bactra’s crescent-shaped cruisers had just erupted into flames. “What in the—”
“Incoming message,” the comm operator announced from behind. “Hologram!”
Suddenly the holographic image of Daiman was beside them, fluorescent in the darkness. “All irregular units, attend to me. This operation has entered a new phase …”
Rusher shook his head. “What … just happened?”
His bridge was silent.
The message had been as terse as the one on the parade grounds, days before. Daiman had commanded Diligence—and, Rusher presumed, any other mercenaries surviving Gazzari—to follow on a particular hyperspace route.
Rusher saw the warrior woman perched at the farthest point forward on the command deck, kneeling as she studied the nebula ahead. There wasn’t much left to see—save debris.
Daiman and Odion’s forces had together torn into Bactra’s surprised flotilla, laying half of it to waste in less than a minute. Bactra’s largest vessel and the other survivors had leapt abruptly for hyperspace, followed by several of the warring-until-a-minute-ago brothers’ capital ships. And leaving just now were the two large cruisers, one Odion’s and one Daiman’s, that had landed untouched on Gazzari shortly before.
“He mentioned coordinates.”
“Right here, Brig.” The comm operator read what they had been sent. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Rusher was nearly struck dumb. “This—this is in Bactra’s space. Jutrand.”
“It’s his capital, isn’t it?” Kerra’s voice came from up ahead. She was still rocking gently on her knee, looking out into the nebula to a point far beyond the burning wrecks. “It’s Bactra’s capital.”
“I don’t know,” Rusher said. “Maybe not for long.”
Rusher tried to put the pieces together. He had to think that Odion would have sent the same message to his own forces. Why else would they have attacked Bactra at the same time? But that only raised another question: why would Daiman and Odion have done anything at the same time, besides try to kill each other?
His visitor looked back, every bit as confounded as he was. “I’ve been away for a while,” she said. “Is there any precedent for Daiman and Odion collaborating?”
“None. You just saw it,” Rusher said. “If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Kerra stood. “There’s nothing here I can’t believe.” Her voice was lower than he’d heard it before.
Rusher looked back to the Mon Calamari. “Anyone targeting us?”
“No, Brigadier. Daiman still has forces lifting off from Gazzari, but all Odion’s people appear to have followed him.”
To Bactra’s homeworld. Rusher looked up to see Beadle Lubboon in the doorway, holding a datapad. The kid looked as if he had gotten lost at least once heading for the bridge. That’s all right, Rusher thought. We’re all a little lost right now.
“I have your head counts, Brigadier.”
Rusher climbed the steps from the command pit to take the datapad. “Master Dackett?”
“The medics had to strap him to the table, sir, to keep him from coming up here when the shooting started.”
Exhaling, Rusher took the datapad. His relief over the news lasted until he saw the numbers.
“One thousand seven hundred and seventeen.”
Kerra looked back. “That’s your crew?”
“No,” Rusher said. “That’s yours.”
Rusher’s crew looked back at him. How could so many refugees have fit on Diligence? Their commander had the answer. “Our survivors are five hundred and sixty.” He ticked off the numbers. Some percentage each of Ripper, Coyn’skar, and Zhaboka battalions—plus those whose assignments had kept them aboard Diligence on Gazzari.
He dropped the datapad to the carpet and stood in silence for a moment. Then he turned.
“Daiman gave us an order. Load coordinates for Jutrand.”
On the other side of the bridge, Kerra nearly leapt out of her boots. “What?”
“We were hired to fight a battle for Daiman,” Rusher said, gravely. “He says it’s not over.”
“It is now!” Kerra stomped
down the steps into the command pit, walking behind the seated bridge crew. “What are you going to do, throw rocks at Bactra? I mean, you just said it. Half your crew is dead or—” She stopped herself and looked incredulously up at the brigadier. “No, no,” she said, leaning over the navigator’s chair. “Belay that order. Just—”
“Belay?” Rusher stormed to the railing. “Listen, lady, you’re lucky to be here right now. I’m of a mind to dump you and your kids back on that ridge and go, while we still can!” He looked at the ships outside. At least no one was shooting any longer, but that didn’t mean they were safe. “Whatever our condition, we’re professionals. We’ve got a commitment. Daiman could still be in the system with us, for all we—”
“No. Odion and Daiman followed Bactra—on those cruisers that came to pick them up.” Kerra looked up at him. “I don’t sense them anymore.”
“You use the Force?” Rusher stared at her. “The lightsaber’s not just for fun?”
“I’m a Jedi.”
Rusher rolled his eyes. This was surreal. “Some kind of Knight errant, running around in Sith space alone, is that it? Saving student bodies here and there.”
“No, this is new,” Kerra said earnestly. “Usually I save whole planets.”
Rusher looked at her for a moment, expecting her expression to change. It didn’t. I was right the first time, he thought. She’s crazy.
Throwing up his hands, Rusher turned to walk off the bridge. “Okay, we’re done. Plot us a way out of here.”
“To where?” the navigator and Kerra asked in unison.
Rusher shrugged. “Just somewhere.” They needed repairs. Reinforcements. Time to regroup. But they wouldn’t be welcome in Daiman’s space after skipping out on the Jutrand leg. They could try to argue they were too crippled to make the trip, but Rusher didn’t put much stock in the odds of sympathy from Daiman.
And most of all, they had to rid themselves of their passengers. One in particular. “I’m going to go check on Master Dackett and the others.”
Star Wars: Knight Errant Page 14
