by James Luceno
Climber distanced himself from the rest of the team and chinned the helmet comlink stud to an encrypted frequency. “Spec-zero Climber secure, Commander.”
“Are the Jedi with you?” Salvo said abruptly.
“No, sir. They’re sweeping the rest of the building in case we overlooked anyone.”
“What’s your situation, squad leader?”
“We’re out of here as soon as the rest of the thermals are set. T-five, at most.”
“Retain a couple of those thermals. Your team is to rejoin us soonest. We have a revised priority.”
“Revised, how?”
“The Jedi are to be killed.”
Climber fell silent for a long moment. “Say again, Commander.”
“We’re taking out the Jedi.”
“On whose orders?”
“Are you questioning my authority?”
“No, sir. Just doing my job.”
“Your job is to obey your superiors.”
Climber recalled Shryne’s actions in the generator room; his speed and accuracy, his skill with the lightsaber.
“Yes, sir. I’m just not too keen about going up against three Jedi.”
“None of us is, Climber. That’s why we need your team here. I want to set up an ambush short of the rally point.”
“Understood, Commander. Will comply. Out.”
Climber rejoined his three teammates, all of whom were watching him closely.
“What was all that about?” Trace asked.
Climber sat on his haunches. “We’ve been ordered to spring an ambush on the Jedi.”
Ras grunted. “Odd time for a live-fire exercise, isn’t it?”
Climber turned to him. “It’s not an exercise.”
Ras didn’t move a muscle. “I thought the Jedi were on our side.”
Climber nodded. “So did I.”
“So what’d they do?” Trace asked.
Climber shook his head. “Salvo didn’t say. And it’s not a question we’re supposed to ask, are we clear on that?”
The three specs regarded one another.
“How do you want to handle it?” Ras said finally.
“The commander wants us to blow an ambush,” Climber said in a determined voice. “I say we give him what he wants.”
From the sheer heights above the medcenter, Shryne, Chatak, and Starstone watched the towering building tremble as the shield generator buried at its base exploded. Clouds of smoke billowed into the chaotic sky, and the structure swayed precariously. Fortunately it didn’t collapse, as Shryne feared it might, so the bridges that spanned the bay suffered no damage. Ten kilometers away, the shimmering energy shield that umbrellaed the landing platform winked out and failed, leaving the huge hexagon open to attack.
Not a moment passed before squadrons of Republic V-wing starfighters and ARC-170 bombers fell from the scudding clouds, cannons blazing. In defense, anti-aircraft batteries on the landing field and bridges opened up, filling the sky with hyphens of raw energy.
Far to the south the Gallant hung motionless, five hundred meters above the turbulent waters of the bay. Completing quick-turn burns, Republic gunships were streaking from the Star Destroyer’s docking bays and racing shoreward through storms of intense fire.
“Now it begins in earnest,” Shryne said.
The three Jedi struck west, moving deeper into the city, then south, angling for the rendezvous point. They avoided engagements with battle droids and mercenaries when they could, and won their skirmishes when evasion wasn’t an option. Shryne was relieved to see that Chatak’s curly-haired Padawan demonstrated remarkable courage, and was as deft at handling a lightsaber as many full-fledged Jedi Knights. He suspected that she had a stronger connection with the Force than he had had even during his most stalwart years as an eager learner.
When he wasn’t seeking ways to avoid confrontation, Shryne was obsessing over his wrong call regarding the medcenter.
“A surgical strike would have been preferable,” he confessed to Chatak as they were hurrying through a gloomy alley Shryne knew from previous visits to Murkhana.
“Ease up on yourself, Roan,” she told him. “The generator was there precisely because the Corporate Alliance knew that we would show the medcenter mercy. What’s more, Commander Salvo’s opinion of you hardly matters in the scheme of things. If both of you weren’t so hooked on military strategy, you could be off somewhere sharing shots of brandy.”
“If either of us drank.”
“Never too late to start, Roan.”
Starstone loosed a loud sigh. “This is the wisdom you impart to your Padawan—that it’s never too late to start drinking?”
“Did I hear a voice?” Shryne said, glancing around in theatrical concern.
“Not an important one,” Chatak assured him.
Starstone was shaking her head back and forth. “This is not the apprenticeship I expected.”
Shryne threw her a look. “When we get back to Coruscant, I’ll be sure to slip a note into the Temple’s suggestion box that Olee Starstone has expressed disappointment with the way she’s being trained.”
Starstone grimaced. “I was at least under the impression that the hazing would stop once I became a Padawan.”
“That’s when the hazing begins,” Chatak said, suppressing a smile. “Wait till you see what you have to endure at the trials.”
“I didn’t realize the trials would include psychological torture.”
Chatak glanced at her. “In the end, Padawan, it all comes down to that.”
“The war is trial enough for anyone,” Shryne said over his shoulder. “I say that all Padawans automatically be promoted to Jedi Knights.”
“You won’t mind if I quote you to Yoda?” Starstone said.
“That’s Master Yoda to you, Padawan,” Chatak admonished.
“I apologize, Master.”
“Even if Yoda and the rest of the High Council members have their heads in the clouds,” Shryne muttered.
Starstone bit her lip. “I’ll pretend I’m not hearing this.”
“You’d better hear it,” Shryne said, turning to her.
They held to their southwesterly course.
The fighting along the shoreline was becoming ferocious. Starfighters and droid craft flying well below optimum altitudes were disappearing in balls of flame. Overwhelmed by ranged ion cannon fire from the Gallant, energy shields throughout the city were beginning to fail and a mass exodus was under way, with panicked crowds of Koorivar fleeing shelters, homes, and places of business. Mercenary brigades, reinforced by battle droids and tanks, were fortifying their positions in the hills. Shryne surmised that the fight to occupy Murkhana was going to be long and brutal, perhaps at an unprecedented cost in lives.
Two hundred meters shy of the rendezvous, he was shaken by a sudden restiveness that had nothing to do with the overarching battle. Feeling as if he had unwittingly led his fellow Jedi into the sights of enemy snipers, he motioned Chatak and Starstone to a halt, then guided them without explanation to the refuge of a deserted storefront.
“I thought I was the only one sensing it,” Chatak said quietly.
Shryne wasn’t surprised. Like Starstone, the Zabrak Jedi had a deep and abiding connection to the Force.
“Can you get to the heart of it?” he asked.
She shook her head no. “Not with any clarity.”
Starstone cut her eyes from one Jedi to the other. “What’s wrong? I don’t sense anything.”
“Exactly,” Shryne said.
“We’re close to the rendezvous, Padawan,” Chatak said in her best mentor’s voice. “So where is everyone? Why haven’t the troopers set up a perimeter?”
Starstone mulled it over. “Maybe they’re just waiting for us to arrive.”
The young woman’s offhand remark went to the core of what Shryne and Chatak were feeling. Trading alert glances, they unclipped their lightsabers and activated the blades.
“Be mindful, Padawan,” Ch
atak cautioned as they were leaving the shelter of the storefront. “Stretch out with your feelings.”
Farther on, at a confluence of twisting streets, Shryne perceived Commander Salvo and a platoon of troopers dispersed in a tight semicircle. Not, however, to provide the Jedi with cover fire in case they were being pursued. Shryne’s earlier sense of misgiving blossomed into alarm, and he shouted for Chatak and Starstone to drop to the ground.
They no sooner did when a series of concussive detonations shook the street. But the blasts had been shaped to blow at Salvo’s position rather than at the Jedi.
Shryne grasped instantly that the flameless explosions had been produced by ECDs—electrostatic charge detonators. Used to disable droids, an ECD was a tactical version of the magnetic-pulse weapon the gunships had released on reaching the beach. Caught in the detonators’ indiscriminate blast radius, Salvo and his troopers yelled in surprise as their helmet imaging systems and weapons responded to the surge by going offline. Momentarily blinded by light-flare from heads-up displays, the troopers struggled to remove their helmets and simultaneously reach for the combat knives strapped to their belts.
By then, though, Captain Climber and the rest of Ion Team had rushed into the open from where they had been hiding, two of the commandos already racing toward the temporarily blinded troopers.
“Gather weapons!” Climber instructed. “No firing!”
Blaster in hand and helmet under one arm, Climber advanced slowly on the three Jedi. “No mind tricks, General,” he warned.
Shryne wasn’t certain that the Jedi technique was even included in his repertoire any longer, but he kept that to himself.
“My specs have their white-noise hardware enabled,” Climber went on. “If they hear me repeat so much as a phrase of what you say to me, they have orders to waste you. Understood?”
Shryne didn’t deactivate his lightsaber, but allowed it to drop from his right shoulder to point at the ground. Chatak and Starstone followed suit, but remained in defensive stances.
“What’s this about, Climber?”
“We received orders to kill you.”
Shryne stared at him in disbelief. “Who issued the order?”
Climber gave his jaw a flick, as if to indicate something behind him. “You’ll have to ask Commander Salvo, sir.”
“Climber, where are you?” Salvo shouted as Climber’s spec-two was escorting the commander forward. The commander’s helmet was off and he had his gloved hands pressed to his eyes. “You blew those ECDs?”
“We did, sir. To get to the bottom of this.”
Sensing Shryne’s approach, Salvo raised his armored fists.
“At ease, Commander,” Shryne told him.
Salvo relaxed somewhat. “Are we your prisoners, then?”
“You gave the order to kill us?”
“I won’t answer that,” Salvo said.
“Commander, if this has anything to do with our earlier head-butting—”
“Don’t flatter yourself, General. This is beyond both of us.”
Shryne was confused. “Then the order didn’t originate with you. Did you ask for verification?”
Salvo shook his head no. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Climber?” Shryne said.
“I don’t know any more than you know, General. And I doubt that Commander Salvo will be as easily persuaded to part with information as our captive merc was.”
“General Shryne,” the spec-one interrupted, tapping his forefinger against the side of his helmet. “Comlink from forward operations. Additional platoons are on their way to Aurek-Bacta to reinforce.”
Climber looked Shryne in the eye. “Sir, we’re not going to be able to stop all of them, and if it comes to a fight, we’re not going to be able to help you any more than we have. We don’t kill our own.”
“I understand, Climber.”
“This has to be a mistake, sir.”
“I agree.”
“For old times’ sake, I’m giving you a chance to escape. But orders are orders. If we find you, we will engage.” Climber held Shryne’s gaze. “Of course, sir, you could kill all of us now, and increase your odds of surviving.”
Salvo and the spec-two made nervous movements.
“As you put it,” Shryne said, “we don’t fire on our own.”
Climber nodded in relief. “Exactly what I would have expected you to say, General. Makes me feel all right about disobeying a direct order, and accepting whatever flak flies our way as a result.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Climber.”
“Hope is not something we store in our kit, General.”
Shryne touched him on the upper arm. “One day you may have to.”
“Yes, sir. Now get a move on before you’re forced to put those lightsabers to the test.”
A chorus of ready tones announced that helmet imaging systems, heads-up displays, and weapons had recovered from the magnetic-pulse effects of the ECDs and were back online.
The troopers, also recovered, didn’t waste a moment in arming their rifles and leveling them at the four commandos, who had their DC-17s raised in anticipation of just such a standoff.
Arms outstretched, Commander Salvo rushed to position himself between the two groups before a blaster bolt could be fired.
“Stand down, all of you!” he snapped. “That’s an order!” He glanced menacingly at Climber. “You had better comply this time.”
While weapons were being lowered all around and the first of the reinforcement platoons was arriving—the troopers plainly confused by the scene unfolding in front of them—Salvo motioned the squad leader off to one side.
“Has your programming been wiped?” Salvo asked. “Our orders came down from the top of the command chain.”
“I thought the Jedi were the top of the chain.”
“From the Commander in Chief, Climber. Do you copy?”
“Supreme Chancellor Palpatine?”
Salvo nodded. “Evidently you and your team need reminding that we serve the Chancellor, not the Jedi.”
Climber considered it. “Were you apprised of what the Jedi have done to prompt an order of execution?”
Salvo’s upper lip curled. “That doesn’t concern me, Climber, and it shouldn’t concern you.”
“You’re right, Commander. I must have been misprogrammed. All this time I’ve accepted that the Grand Army and the Jedi Knights served the Republic. No one said anything to me about serving Palpatine first and foremost.”
“Palpatine is the Republic, Climber.”
“Palpatine issued the orders personally?”
“His command was to execute an order that has been in place since before the start of the war.”
Climber took a moment to consider it. “Here’s my take on it, Commander. It all comes down to serving the ones who are fighting alongside you, watching your back, putting a weapon in your hand when you need it most.”
Salvo sharpened his tone. “We’re not going to argue this now. But I promise you this much: if we don’t catch them, you’ll pay for your treason—you and your entire team.”
Climber nodded. “We knew that going in.”
Salvo took a breath and gave his head a rueful shake. “You shouldn’t be thinking for yourself, brother. It’s more dangerous than you know.”
He swung to the members of his platoon and the recent arrivals.
“Platoon leaders, switch your comlinks to encrypted command frequency zero-zero-four. Have your troopers fan out. Grid search. Every building, every nook and cranny. You know what you’re up against, so keep your wits about you.”
“Ever see a Jedi run, Commander?” a platoon leader asked. “My guess is they’re already ten klicks from here.”
Salvo turned to his comlink specialist. “Contact the Gallant. Inform command that we have a situation, and that we’re going to need whatever seeker droids and BARC detachments can be spared.”
“Commander,” the same platoon leader s
aid, “unless the Seps are in on this hunt, we’re going to have our hands full. Are we here to take Murkhana or the Jedi?”
Climber smirked. “Don’t make matters worse by trying to confuse him, Lieutenant.”
Gesturing with his forefinger, Salvo said: “Worse for you if they escape.”
Shryne knew Murkhana City by heart.
“This way … Down here … Up there,” he instructed as they made their escape, using the speed granted by the Force to put kilometers between themselves and their new enemy.
The city was wide open to bombardment now. The energy shields were down and the anti-laser aerosols had diffused. Two additional Star Destroyers hung over the bay, but Republic forces were continuing to show restraint. Most of the intense fighting was still occurring around the landing platform, although the hexagonal field itself was not being targeted, as it and the three bridges that remained were essential for moving troopers and matériel into the city. Shryne figured that once the landing platform was taken, the Separatists would probably blow the rest of the bridges, if only to slow the inevitable occupation, while residents continued to flee for their lives.
In the streets, firefights were undergoing a conspicuous change now that the clone troopers had been issued a new priority. Separatist mercenaries and battle droids were making the most of the confusion. Shryne, Chatak, and Starstone had witnessed several instances when platoons of clones disengaged from fighting, presumably to continue the hunt for the Jedi.
When Shryne felt that the three of them had a moment to spare he led them into a deserted building and pulled his comlink from his belt.
“The troopers have changed frequencies to prevent our eavesdropping on them,” he said.
“That doesn’t affect our knowing their methods for conducting a search,” Chatak said.
“We can avoid them for however long it takes to clear this up. If it comes down to worst cases, I have contacts in the city who might be able to help us escape.”
“Whose lives are we protecting here,” Starstone asked in an edgy voice, “ours or the troopers’? I mean, aren’t we the ones who had them grown?”
Shryne and Chatak traded secret glances.
